


Making Up For All This Mess

by Namarie



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-2.22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-02 04:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4045132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Namarie/pseuds/Namarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You will be hunted down … by me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my version of what Ressler's hunt for Liz might be like, picking up immediately after Liz calls Ressler in the finale. It is not part of Mack_the_Spoon's and my “Bloodlines” AU series.  
> Also, thanks to Ellitheria for encouraging me to go ahead with it. I'm doing my very best to keep reading along with your excellent series without making my story too much like yours!

~~

Donald Ressler stared at his phone for a good minute and a half after she ended the call. People were still moving around him, processing the scene and whatever else, but he was having a little trouble doing anything at the moment. Including thinking. He had asked her – _begged her_ – to come in, so that he wouldn't have to hunt her down, and she had hung up. He knew with grim certainty that she was in the wind, with Reddington. The sick, heavy feeling in his gut that had been there since the Karakurt interrogation started to go south was only getting worse. And she hadn't offered him any kind of explanation or tried to defend herself for what she had done (God, _murder_ – cold-blooded murder!). She had only called him to insist on Cooper's innocence.

But that was like her, Ressler thought, with a rush of emotion that he quelled quickly. The Liz he knew – or thought he knew – rarely stopped to consider her own well-being when others were in danger.

Somehow, he made it through the rest of that hellish day without falling apart. Elizabeth Keen went on the Ten Most Wanted list, right next to the man who had dragged her into all of this. Deputy AG Wright informed him that as of now, the task force would continue to exist, but its function would be to locate and apprehend Raymond Reddington and Elizabeth Keen. She wanted him to continue in the role of acting director, if he was up to it. There was a decent chance the new role would be made official. Ressler had nodded. He needed to do this. It was the only way he could think that he might get some answers, understand how the hell this had happened. And besides, if anyone was going to catch Liz, he wanted it to be their team. But even as he and the rest of the team set things in motion at the Post Office, he couldn't help thinking, repeatedly, of how futile his efforts had been to hunt down Reddington in the past. If he and Keen were together, which they obviously were, it wouldn't be any easier to find them now. And then a lack of results in the search might well eventually provide an excuse for someone in the Cabal moving to shut down their task force. If that happened, then where would they all be?

And how would he live with himself if someone other than him found Liz?

Cooper knocked on his door that night, not too long after Ressler had finally dragged himself home for the day. Ressler stared at his former boss for a few seconds, and then stood aside to let him in. He had been afraid the FBI would keep Harold Cooper in custody for some number of days or weeks, but apparently not.

“Long day,” said Cooper, sitting down on the couch. The man looked exhausted and drained – no more or less than he did himself, Ressler thought. He saw with a little pang that Cooper was still wearing his flag pin on his lapel, though his tie was gone.

“Yeah.” Ressler was about to sit down in the easy chair, but paused. “You want something to drink, sir? I was just about to get myself something.”

“Please,” said Cooper. “And Don, you don't have to call me 'sir' anymore.”

Sighing, he nodded and went into the kitchen, returning with two beers. The two men drank in silence for a few minutes. Ressler spoke first. “I know you've already given your statement,” he said. “But … is there anything else you can tell me? About … what happened?”

Cooper took a while to reply. He seemed hesitant. “Connolly was threatening every one of us who are – or were – part of the task force, before Keen shot him,” he said at last. “He was going to shut us down, collectively and individually. He had specific threats for each of us.”

When that sank in, Ressler's eyes widened. “For each of us?”

The older man nodded. “Agent Navabi would be extradited to Iran to stand trial for killing one of their top nuclear scientists. You would be drummed out of the Bureau for your addiction to Oxy. My wife would be arrested for leaking a classified document to the press. Reddington would be prosecuted as a traitor. He said he had something in store for Aram, as well.”

Ressler took a sharp breath and looked away. So Connolly had known. Clearly the man had ears and eyes everywhere. But if he was really part of the Cabal, then of course he did. And now Cooper knew.

“Elizabeth knew about you, didn't she?” Cooper's voice was quiet. “And she kept your secret.”

“Yeah.” He still couldn't meet the man's eyes. “Sir, if I-- if I hadn't been able to kick the habit, I would have come to you. I just...”

“You just needed to try to deal with the problem by yourself, and with your partner's help, first,” Cooper said. When Ressler looked up, he was smiling sadly. “I get that. And I'm glad you clearly have kicked the habit.”

Ressler's jaw tightened. “I have, sir.” He would never let it beat him again, if there was anything he could do to stop it.

“Good. But I think you also have to assume Connolly wasn't the only member of the Cabal who knows about this.” He sighed again. “That threat – the danger for the whole task force – is more than likely not gone, just on hold.”

They were both silent for another little while. Ressler swallowed a few more mouthfuls of beer, and tried to calm himself back down. He could stay on top of this, stay alert. This didn't have to be the end. Liz had seen to that, as much as he wholeheartedly wished she hadn't done it this way.

Then Cooper went on, echoing his thoughts a little bit. “I think Connolly's threats against the task force were the last straw for her. Whether he realized it or not, he was effectively cutting off all of her options. Her back was against the wall, and he'd put all of us there, too. Not that I'm saying I agree with what she did.” He paused, and for an instant, Ressler saw sheer grief on the other man's face. He took a ragged breath. “But I understand that she felt she had no choice.”

From all he'd heard, Ressler had to agree that it would have been easy for her to feel trapped. But still, for her to have pulled that trigger... It wasn't something he had even begun to process. He doubted she had, either.

“You were with her most of the day,” Ressler said. Cooper nodded. “How did she seem, before then, I mean?”

“Terrified,” said Cooper. “Desperate. Angry. Defiant.” He sighed. “Her ex-husband called Reddington at one point early on. Apparently he offered to take her away with him, but she wouldn't go – she wanted to clear her name.”

Trying not to reveal how much of an unpleasant surprise it was to hear that Tom was still in the picture at all, Ressler shook his head. “Of course she did.” And now it was impossible. There was no way to clear her name of the murder charge, at least. But he couldn't deny it wasn't good to hear that Liz hadn't taken her scheming liar of an ex up on his offer of escape. Even Reddington was vastly to be preferred as a means to flee. At least there was no doubt in Ressler's mind that the man was motivated and equipped to keep her safe.

“Well, I really came over just to see how you were doing, and also to remind you that we do have enough evidence at least to prove to the rest of the task force that Connolly was dirty,” said Cooper, setting down his beer and standing up. “I know you'll do your best to see that it gets to the right people – enough of them that the Cabal can't silence the report easily.”

“I will, sir,” said Ressler, standing up as well. “And, uh, we're going to do our best to find her before anyone else does.”

“I know you will.” Cooper smiled again, more broadly. “I wasn't planning to leave my position while I still could do my job, but I'm not sad to see you take my place, Don.”

Ressler managed his first sincere smile in a lot of hours, and shook Cooper's hand. “Thank you.”

~  
The first time Liz contacted him, it was two days later, by email. He didn't recognize the sender at all – it seemed to be a random sequence of numbers and letters – but somehow it didn't get filtered into his spam folder. The subject line was, “Following up on our last conversation”. He was intrigued enough to click on it, even though he hadn't yet figured out who sent it.

Inside, all it said was:

_Thank you for helping to make sure Cooper didn't end up in jail. I'm glad the task force isn't shut down.  
Look after them, and yourself._

Ressler read the three sentences over and over again, staring at his computer screen as if he might have missed some detail the first dozen times. It was her. He was sure of it. She was alive. She had some way of keeping tabs on him, it seemed – probably through Reddington's people – such that she knew about his promotion. And she had reached out to him.

Finally, though it cost him more than he cared to admit, he stood up from his desk (he hadn't moved out of what had been Liz's and his office yet, though he had been almost relieved that her desk had been cleared out so quickly) and went out to talk to Aram. “I think I just got an email from-- Keen,” he said. “Can you track it?”

Aram's expression of shock was almost comical, except that the sadness and hope mixed in took away any amusement. “She-- she sent you an email?”

“She didn't put in her name or anything, but yeah, I'm pretty sure it's her. She called me right after … everything, just to make sure I knew Cooper was innocent, and the email references that. You going to take a look at it, or what?”

Jumping up, Aram followed Ressler back to his desk. He scanned the email that was open on Ressler's screen, and again didn't do a good job of hiding his emotional response to the words it contained. But after just a few seconds, he got down to business, typing away on the keyboard. “It looks like, if it is her, she's done her homework as far as hiding her location is concerned.” He frowned and kept working, pulling up various windows whose purpose Ressler could only guess at. “Yeah, I can't even trace the IP address back to a public server. Damn. She's good.”

Ressler let out his breath. He wasn't sure whether he was more relieved or frustrated, and that frustrated him. “So you can't find where she sent it from?”

“Sorry, boss,” said Aram with a shrug. “I can maybe narrow it down to somewhere in South America, but I'm not even sure that's the true location. It's been bounced around all over the world.”

Rubbing a hand across his forehead, Ressler turned away. “All right. All right, I understand.” He sighed again, and then said quietly, “At least this is some confirmation that she's still alive.”

Aram nodded. “Yeah, that's a good thing. For more than one reason.”

“Exactly.” Ressler was pretty sure Aram and he were on the same page: first and foremost, they wanted Liz to be okay, and secondly, it was good to have something to show their bosses, to prove that they weren't totally without any leads. Even if Ressler knew he was going to feel like he was betraying her when he showed this to his superiors. “Do you think she'd see if I replied? Or is she just going to get rid of this account?”

“It's worth a try, I'd say. You never know.” Aram hesitated, and then turned completely to face Ressler. “What are you going to say?”

“I'm not sure yet.” He needed to strike a delicate balance here: let her know that he was relieved to know she was fine, assure her Cooper was fine, but also keep it relatively professional. Once he informed his superiors that Liz had communicated with him, they would no doubt expect to be informed of every subsequent communication that might happen between the two of them. And they would watch his email account themselves if he didn't continue to volunteer the information. Or hell, even if he did.

Aram vacated Ressler's seat, and waited for a moment as his acting director sat down. “I'll, uh... Let me know if you need anything else,” he said, and then departed.

It took him an absurdly long time to compose his very short email response. At long last, he settled on:

_Cooper is doing fine. The rest of the team is fine, too. I'll tell them all you're thinking of them. We'd like to know how you're doing._

Then he dithered for a while before deciding not to put his name at the bottom. He decided not to, in the end. His was in his email address, after all.

She didn't reply to his email or contact him again for nearly a month. In the meantime, as he had expected, any leads the team found on either of their two targets always came up empty when they were followed up. The most recent sighting had placed them in Istanbul, but by the time they had mobilized to track them from there, another sighting had been reported outside of Belfast. Their contacts in both locations had done their best, but hadn't been able to determine which one (if either) was where the two targets had genuinely been.

Meanwhile, Ressler had seen a number of interesting articles starting to appear in various newspapers and being reported on TV news outlets from around the country and beyond. They varied a little in their content, but all of them focused on a shadowy conspiracy of powerful men and women who seemed to have players in all areas of society, manipulating world events for their own benefit. These articles had actual evidence to back up their claims, too. An outcry was beginning to build in response. Don couldn't help the smile that nearly always spread across his face whenever he saw these articles. Reddington – and Liz, he assumed – were not going down without a fight. They would not be driven into obscurity. He was sure the Cabal was already regretting some of their actions against the two of them.

The evening after that latest lead failed to pan out, Don was just getting into his car outside the Post Office when his phone rang. He didn't recognize the caller's number at all. And then that realization brought with it a little jolt of adrenaline. Could it be--? “Ressler,” he said after he picked up the call. He thought his voice was admirably free of any hints of his emotional turmoil. For that one word.

“I think we're going to start doing things differently for a while,” she said, no preamble and no hesitation. It was her. “We're going to see how this works.”

“How what works?” His heart was pounding. He hadn't heard her voice in a month. He wanted to ask her where she was – he wanted to ask her so many things – but this sounded like a business call. And if so, it would be something he needed to listen to again, with the task force. He took the phone away from his ear, put her on speaker, and also pressed record.

There was a moment of silence over the line, and then the sound of conversation in the background. If Ressler had to guess, he would pinpoint that male voice as Reddington's. Interesting that they were both in on this. Then Liz said, “I don't know if you heard any of that, but he said he doesn't like to watch you repeating your past with this new manhunt. He says you'll know exactly what he means.”

Ressler gritted his teeth. Even after all this time, after all that had changed since then, it irked him to be reminded of that fruitless, immensely frustrating period of his life. “Yes. So?”

“So the task force is going to start receiving real intel,” she said. “Not about the location and activities of Raymond Reddington and Elizabeth Keen, but about people who actually need to be uncovered and brought out of hiding. You know who and what they'll all be associated with.”

He did, and he shared her paranoia about mentioning the Cabal on the phone. “I got it. So this is going to be another version of Reddington's list, is what you're saying?”

“In a way. It was a good system. No reason it needs to end completely.” At that, he was fairly sure he heard her voice shake.

Pushing back even harder against the flood of things he desperately wanted to say to her, Ressler started back into the building. “All right. But you know there will be … obstacles to getting these people prosecuted. Considering what they're associated with.”

“There is that risk, but the benefits will outweigh it.” Then she took a sharp breath, exhaled, and hung up.

Ressler stopped recording and all but ran back inside. This had the potential to be huge – for the team, and for his continued contact with Liz.

~  
The months went on. Ressler had dutifully passed on this information to acting AG Wright. She had been on board with at least acting as if they were willing to dive into this new version of the Blacklist. “Our primary goal remains apprehending these two fugitives, however,” she had added, looking at him piercingly. “We're still in agreement on that, right, Agent Ressler?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he had replied. And it was true – as true as it always was.

But for a while it seemed like the point was moot. There were very few new leads on their location, and no criminals, under the Cabal's umbrella or otherwise, wrapped in paper and tied up with a bow for them to find, either. And no emails or calls from unknown addresses or numbers. Of course, he had tried calling her back at the number she'd used to call him, but the line was disconnected. Ressler started to lose hope. He was aware that his effectiveness in leadership at the Post Office was going to come into question soon, if it hadn't already. He tried not to let his desperation show, but he knew that wasn't going to last too much longer. He was the first one in every morning and the last one to leave, and he always made sure to pick up more eyewitness reports and the like to sift through than anyone else. But it never seemed like enough. It was a different kind of endless disappointment as his hunt for Reddington had been, but it still felt terribly familiar.

One early afternoon, Samar came into his office – which he still thought of as Cooper's office. She didn't say anything at first, just looked at him from the doorway.

“You need something?” Ressler asked at last, when she didn't speak.

She crossed her arms. “Mostly, I need to know you can still run this team,” she said tartly.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He kept his tone from sounding as furious as he felt, but he did glare at her.

“You know exactly what it means,” she said, returning his glare. “If you go on and self-destruct out of some kind of ridiculous desire to try to personally create success out of nothing, our enemies will take that as an excuse to get rid of you, and send in a replacement.”

Though as far as he knew, Samar hadn't heard anything about the specific threats that bastard Connolly had made against each of the task force members, he suppressed a shiver at the reminder of what they had on him. And on Samar, for that matter.

“There is a middle ground between burning yourself out pointlessly and giving up, you know,” she added, softening her stare a little.

Ressler snorted and nodded. “Yeah.” Then his amusement faded. It was Keen who used to give him these kind of wake-up calls when he needed them. And that had been often. But she wasn't here now, and he wasn't close to finding her.

Samar uncrossed her arms and held out a small folded sheet of paper. “I suppose I should tell you about this, but only if you promise to visit your apartment at some point soon, for several consecutive hours of sleep.” Ressler reached for the paper, but she pulled it back. “What about your promise, _sir_?” She emphasized the last word, with a slight mocking raise of an eyebrow.

“Fine. I promise,” said Ressler, half-annoyed and half-amused. “Now will you give that to me already, Agent Navabi?”

She did so, and waited for him to read it. “It just came in over one of the tip lines.”

Ressler stood up, not able to tear his eyes away from the little piece of paper. “She's-- she's been seen in Virginia?” That made no sense. It hadn't been nearly enough time for the furor surrounding Connolly's death to die down. Surely Reddington would never allow her to put herself in danger like this.

“Two sightings, in the same general area,” Samar confirmed, as he had already read.

It didn't make sense, but that didn't mean they could afford to ignore it. “We need to get out there, now.”

“I'll get the team ready.”

While the team converged on the vicinity of the sightings, Aram kept them updated about surveillance footage from any nearby cameras. He sent a blurry photo of a woman from one camera; she was the right height and body type, with dark hair mostly covered by a hood. Ressler sucked in a breath. He hadn't allowed himself to ponder which he wanted more: for the photo of the woman to be her, or for it not to be her.

And of course, when they all burst into the abandoned warehouse that was the only possible location for her to be hiding based on all the data available, Elizabeth Keen was nowhere to be found. The vast, gloomy space was almost entirely empty. However, there was a burner phone on top of an old crate, along with a single Post-it note. The note read, “The first of many”, in handwriting that didn't look like either Keen's or Reddington's.

The phone rang. Ressler met the eyes of Samar and the other field agents gathered in the warehouse. “I guess this is for me,” he muttered.

He quashed a flash of disappointment when it was Reddington's voice on the other end, not Liz's. “Donald. I see you've tracked down our first clue,” he said, sounding as if this was any other day on the job for the task force – not the first time the two men had spoken since he had gone on the run with the woman who had been Ressler's partner.

Ressler glanced around the shadowy, dusty space they were in. “You _see_? Care to share what or who you're using to do that, Reddington?”

The man just laughed and moved on with, “If you're interested in rounding up a few of the men involved in bringing Karakurt into the country, I suggest you check the surrounding buildings. You'll find the men in question on the fourth floor. Take care with them when you leave, as they'll be targets.”

Before Ressler could reply, Reddington hung up. He expected a “no”, but Ressler still spoke to Aram over the earpiece to ask, “Did we get a trace on the call?”

“Not exactly,” replied the agent. “Mr. Reddington was using a sat phone, it looks like, and he was definitely outside of the country. That's all I was able to get before he disconnected.”

So, pretty much as he expected. If Red wasn't in the US, it was all but certain Liz hadn't been. Ressler handed the burner phone and the Post-it to a waiting agent and ordered everyone to sweep the surrounding area in a five-block radius from the warehouse. “Agent Navabi,” he finished, “you're with me and the rest of us who are starting in the north quadrant.”

Samar nodded and fell in next to him as they exited. “A five-block radius?” she asked quietly.

“Reddington didn't specify what 'surrounding buildings' meant,” said Ressler with a shrug. “And even if he had, we'd still need to check more broadly, just in case.” She didn't disagree.

It didn't take more than ten minutes for the team in the south quadrant to find two men, tied up and gagged, in a fourth-floor room of an old, run-down apartment building. When the agents who found them called in to report it, Ressler told them to bring them both down to the staging area, but to stay on the lookout as they did so. “Reddington said they could be targets, so they need to be protected.”

He was about to call off the rest of the searchers when something caught his eye out the window. “Samar, do you see that woman at the edge of the crowd there?” There was a small crowd of onlookers beyond the crime scene tape spread across the street, and there was one figure that Ressler thought looked familiar.

Samar followed his gaze. “That's the woman from the surveillance footage!” The Liz lookalike was clearly trying to slip away unnoticed.

Quickly, Ressler called for someone on the ground to grab her. As he and Samar raced down the stairs to join the rest of the team, he tried not to get his hopes up. Just because Reddington hadn't mentioned anything about this woman in his cryptic phone call didn't mean that apprehending her would necessarily be any kind of break in the case.

And in fact, in the aftermath of a sniper shot directed at one of the men the team had found in the apartment, the woman almost got away. But as soon as Ressler made sure the sniper hadn't killed or seriously injured anyone – FBI, prisoner, or bystander – and that the prisoners were safe in the back of an FBI SUV, he and Samar charged after the escaping woman. They cornered her in an alley. As soon as she heard them shouting at her to stop, she turned around with her hands raised.

Up close, Ressler thought as he regained his breath, she looked very little like Keen. The face shape was all wrong, and her eyes were brown. As Samar put cuffs on her, she looked genuinely nervous. “Look, I realize I probably caused some trouble today,” she said quickly, “but all I did was accept some cash to walk around in this part of town. Oh, and write a note. I honestly have no idea what's going on.”

Ressler had a sinking feeling she was telling the truth. Still, he escorted her none too gently toward the last waiting SUV. “We'll see,” he said.

The two men Reddington had delivered arrived at the Post Office almost not worse for wear, except for a minor bullet graze on the older of the two guys' shoulder. Ressler decided to interrogate them separately, while Samar questioned the woman.

The first guy, the one with the bullet wound that agents had treated on the way to the Post Office, gave his name as Arnold Savoy. “I'm not going to give you anything else until you promise you'll protect me,” he said, staring at Ressler with defiance and fear in his watery gray eyes. He didn't look like any kind of muscle, so Ressler guessed he must be part of the brains behind the Karakurt operation.

Just to be thorough, Don folded his hands on the desk and said, “Who do you need protection from, Mr. Savoy?” Even though he knew the answer.

“You already know the answer to that question, don't you?” Savoy asked sharply. “Reddington and Keen told me you know. They said my associate and I could either let ourselves be arrested by your task force and hope you might be able to protect us, or see if we could persuade the two of them to be merciful to us.” Savoy swallowed. “You can see what we both chose. So will you protect me?”

With difficulty, Ressler concealed the pang it gave him to hear Liz mentioned in the same terrified breath as Reddington like this, on the other side of the law. And the suspect had said her name specifically. It hadn't been a mistake. But Ressler cleared his throat and said, “I give you my word that I will do everything I can to protect you and your associate, if you give us useful intel on Karakurt as well as your interactions with Keen and Reddington.”

Savoy regarded him for several seconds. Then he nodded. “Okay. I believe you.” He still looked nervous, but he started in.

About an hour later, both Arnold Savoy and Michael Wilkins had given their full confessions, as well as the little bit of information they had on the two fugitives. Their accounts matched up pretty well: they had been hired by a man they had never met in person, but who had an accent that sounded Russian, to arrange the delivery of a certain package onto US soil. Savoy had contacts in place already for this kind of operation, so he had reached out to Wilkins and others to set up a secure location for Karakurt to arrive. However, he had not been present at the site nor had he ever seen Karakurt himself. He had worked with several other Russians, who had done most of the actual work of getting their man where they wanted him. Wilkins had been one of several men to provide security at the site. He was able to pass on more information about it. Not that Ressler thought there would be much, if any, evidence left behind. They shared the details of how they had been paid, but Savoy warned that it wasn't likely that the money transfers would be traceable.

As far as their time face-to-face with the two Most Wanted, neither of them had much in the way of useful intel. Savoy had been in Milan when two guys had cornered him and shoved him into the back of a car. Wilkins had been in London when a similar thing had happened to him. They had both been brought to a quiet little chalet in the Swiss Alps, as Reddington had informed them when the hoods had been removed from their heads. Keen had been there, in the background at first. Neither of the two men had recognized her or known who she was.

“I swear, I had no idea why the Russians wanted this Karakurt guy to come here,” Wilkins had said. “I didn't even know he was a terrorist.”

This was being recorded, Ressler knew, and he further knew that Aram had set up backups that hopefully no one outside of the three of the remaining original task force members knew about. He leaned forward. “Whether you knew that or not doesn't change what he did,” he said. “It doesn't change what you helped him accomplish. Fourteen government agents died because of him.”

Wilkins nodded, looking miserable and scared. “I know. The woman, Elizabeth Keen, she told me. And Reddington told me how Karakurt and that other guy – Andropov – set Keen up to take the fall for the senator that got murdered.” He shivered. “Reddington made sure I knew that.”

Hiding a cold smile, since he could imagine very clearly how Reddington would behave in that situation, Ressler said, “Go on.”

“There wasn't time for that much after that,” he said. “Keen was the one who asked whether we wanted to try our luck with FBI protection, or see if we could convince the two of them not to turn us over to, uh, the people who wanted Karakurt in the country.”

Ressler looked at him sharply. “What do you know about those people?”

“Almost nothing, I swear!” Wilkins started to look panicked again. “They always contacted us – we never had a way to contact them. And they almost always contacted Savoy, not me.”

Savoy backed up Wilkins in this last assertion, but maintained that he didn't know anything about the men further up in the Cabal, either. He didn't know anything about what their broader goals might be. “I knew this Karakurt person was dangerous, but I didn't care to know any further.”

All in all, it was not an incredibly satisfying series of interviews, Ressler reflected, but it did feel like a start. At the very least, it was further evidence that could be used to clear Liz of the deaths of the CIA agents … at some point, anyway. The case needed to be stronger first.

Samar informed him that the Liz lookalike, whose name was Mary Cruz, told her she had been approached by a fairly nondescript guy as she was leaving her favorite downtown coffee shop, and asked if she wanted to earn a quick, easy five hundred dollars. Miss Cruz had been suspicious, but the man had assured her that all she had to do was walk around in a couple of specific public places in the area, and write a specific message on a Post-It note. He had warned her there was a risk she would be mistaken for a woman who was a fugitive from the law, but added that there was very little risk she would get into any serious trouble.

Miss Cruz had even offered to give them the money, though she had deposited half of it in her bank account already. Samar said the lab was checking the remaining bills to see if they could get any useful trace evidence, but they didn't have particularly high hopes. “I'm thinking we just cut her loose, after another warning not to accept jobs from strangers that seem too good to be true,” she said to Ressler, outside the interrogation room where Miss Cruz was waiting. “I strongly doubt she's actually involved with Keen or Reddington beyond taking this henchman's money.”

Ressler nodded. “Sounds about right. We can put a tail on her for a day or so, just to make sure no one else gets into contact with her.”

As he sat down to begin arranging the best possible security for these two gentlemen, for the first batch of criminals Liz and Red had delivered to them, he thought that things seemed to have gone reasonably well.

~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Liz, and more angst.

~  
Three days later, Ressler had just gotten back to his apartment to try to get some of those consecutive hours of sleep he had promised Samar. (In the past three days, he'd only managed two or three at a time, which really didn't cut it.) He shut his door and locked it behind him, sighing as he sank down onto his couch. That was when his phone rang – with an unfamiliar number.

Adrenaline woke him up completely as he answered. “Hello?”

“Ressler.” Her voice was soft, not the brisk, businesslike tone it had been last time she'd called. “I'm sorry – I know it must be late there.”

“It's fine. I'm awake.” He breathed in, aware that he should record this call, too. He just wasn't sure he could do it. Not this kind of call. He'd start recording if she said anything significant to the case, he told himself. “How about you? You okay?”

She laughed a little. “I'm fine, Ressler. But you sound exhausted.”

He could have told her about the long hours he'd been putting in – about how everything he did now was focused around his goal to be the one who found her, so that she would have a chance at a return to normal life. Or at least closer to normal, and safe. But all he said was, “It's good to hear from you again, Liz.”

Liz inhaled sharply. “I-- I never got to tell you … that I'm sorry.”

She sounded close to tears now, and Ressler struggled to maintain his own equilibrium. “About what?”

“I didn't want to do this to you.” She sniffed. “But I hope you know I didn't see any other choice. Not if I – if we want to have even the chance of taking these people down.”

He took several seconds to reply. “I almost wish I didn't see,” he told her honestly. “But I'm starting to.” She had still killed a man in cold blood – but she had done it because she'd been backed into a corner, with the threat of the Cabal destroying everyone and everything she cared about. That made a difference to him, and to Samar, Aram, and Cooper. It was something they could hold onto.

It was Liz's turn to be quiet for a few seconds. Then she said, “Okay. Well. I have to go now.”

“Wait!” Ressler sat up, as if he could influence her decisions from here. But the call was still active. She was waiting. He scrambled to find any of the things he had wanted to say to her for so long. “Stay safe,” was what he ended up settling on. Not exactly profound, but he meant it. “Please.”

“I will. Get some sleep.” The call ended.

The calls continued to come, at irregular intervals over the next three months. Four of the seven calls were all business: preparing the task force for the next Blacklister that she and Reddington were setting up for them. Once, she called to warn that the new deputy director of the FBI was very likely a Cabal member. That call had only been long enough for her to deliver that news before she hung up. It had taken much longer than that for Ressler to calm down and pass along this news very discreetly to Samar and Aram.

It was the two personal calls that meant the most and were the most painful to him. He didn't record either of them and in fact did his best to remove evidence that he'd received them. (He supposed he would have to bring Aram in on his secret to get that done properly.) But just because he couldn't listen to them again and again didn't mean he didn't remember each one in detail.

The first of these (second, counting the one where she had apologized to him) had been early one Saturday morning. Ressler had already been awake, reading the latest article about the Cabal to be published in the local DC paper as he ate his breakfast. A special senate investigation was being called for, though it was by no means guaranteed that anything would come of it.

His phone rang – an unknown number. Ressler immediately set down the paper and answered. “Ressler.”

She hadn't said anything at all for long enough that he had begun to worry that it wasn't her after all. Then finally, unsteadily, she said, “Hi.”

“What's wrong?” Don got to his feet and started to pace. Obviously she wasn't going to tell him where she was if he asked – even though right now, he could admit to himself that all he would do with that information would be to try to get to her as quickly as possible, if there was anything he could do to help.

“Nothing.” At his scoff, she amended, “Nothing serious, Ressler. I promise. Just...” She took a slow breath. “Just a really bad dream.”

“Oh.” He grimaced, imagining what kinds of things she could have a nightmare about. There were far too many things that her exhausted, stressed subconscious could pick, he knew. “Sorry.” Then it occurred to him: perhaps she had literally just woken up from her bad dream – and called him. The thought made him have to sit back down quickly.

“It's okay,” she said, after another pause. She did sound calmer. “I didn't wake you, did I? It's Saturday morning there, right?”

He smiled, just slightly. “Yeah, it is. But I was up already. Never been much for sleeping in.”

“Yeah, you wouldn't be, would you?” He could hear her smiling now.

“What's that supposed to mean?” he shot back, grin broadening. “Is that some kind of dig, Keen?”

She chuckled. “Of course not, Ressler. It's just more evidence that you're a workaholic, that's all.”

“Okay, so now you're calling just to criticize me. I get it.” But he kept his tone light, hoping she would hear that he was teasing, too.

Laughing again, she said, “You got me.” Then she grew serious, and quiet again. “I should go. But Ressler – thank you.”

“For what?”

“Just...” She let out another slow breath. “Just for being there.” And before he could gather the words to promise that he would be there for her any time he could, she hung up. The implications of this call had left him so shaken that he was very glad it wasn't a workday. He was pretty sure anyone at the office would have been able to see his agitation clear as day.

The other personal call she made to him happened near the end of that three-month period. The task force had just locked up another couple of low-ranking Cabal associates, delivered to them by Reddington and Keen. The next day, two of the most controversial, widely-publicized articles exposing the Cabal were discredited, and the relevant newspapers issued retractions. Heart sinking, Ressler went back and looked for the authors of the articles, and then tried to discreetly see if he could find out if they were all right. The two that were named were missing. He had immediately done his best to reinforce the protections he had in place for all the Blacklisters Reddington and Keen had delivered. He would check on them in person tomorrow, if he could get away from the office. Then he had gone home, tense, distracted, and irritable. Not fit company for anyone.

And of course, two minutes after he had turned on some dumb movie on cable, his phone had started to ring. He muted the TV and grabbed for the phone so quickly that he almost knocked it off the coffee table. “Hi,” he said, hoping it wasn't a wrong number this time.

“Did you see the retractions?” she asked. She sounded tired. Weary, even.

“I did.” He sighed. “The two named authors are missing.”

“Yeah. Red's looking for them.”

That was a relief to hear, actually. If they could be found, Reddington would find them. Ressler thought of something. “Oh, I don't know if you heard – Samar has to go back to Mossad for a while. Her bosses called her back.”

She was quiet for a few seconds. “Did she check to be sure it was really them who called?”

Ressler let out a stunned, “Shit.” He hadn't even thought to ask. “I-- I don't know. But she's not leaving until after work tomorrow. It-- Whoever it was didn't make it sound like an emergency.”

“She should still check. Just to be sure.” Her voice was even, but he could hear the tension in it.

“I'll make sure to ask her about it.” Samar was very much able to take care of herself, but that didn't mean a little added caution would hurt. Especially considering what Cooper had told him about Connolly's plans for her.

“Whether it really is Mossad or not, that will mean you have fewer friends at the office,” Liz said. Now she sounded worried. “It also means there'll be an empty slot that will need to be filled.”

“I'll watch my back,” he said. “And I'll keep looking out for Aram and the others, too. You just worry about you.”

“Okay.” There was a rustling sound in the background, and she said, “I've got to go. Don, please be careful about – about who knows you're looking into those journalists, and things like that. These people could decide you're too troublesome at any time, if you give them a reason.”

Ressler rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah. I know. I do my best to be discreet.” There was always more he could do, though. Like make sure there was no evidence of these calls on his phone. He'd talk to Aram tomorrow.

“Good.” Liz said goodnight and hung up.

The next day, Ressler made sure, first thing, that Samar had received her instructions to go back home from a source she trusted. The woman's eyebrows rose when he asked her, quietly, at her work station, but she nodded. “Yes, it was all very normal,” she assured him. “But you're right that the timing seems … noteworthy.”

He glanced around. “I know I don't have to tell you to be on your guard,” he said, and then frowned. “But I have to say, I wish your bosses hadn't picked right now to pull you out – although maybe they know something we don't.”

“In less serious circumstances, I might make a comment about how much more my people know than yours do,” she said wryly. “But for now, I'll just promise to let you know when I arrive, and to come back as soon as possible.”

“You mean, _if_ it's at all possible,” Ressler corrected. After all, this whole arrangement with Mossad had been set up under strange circumstances in the first place, while Cooper and Reddington were both still involved with this task force.

Samar acknowledged this with a frown of her own. He watched her gaze travel over his shoulder to where Aram was sitting. “Yes. But I'm going to do my best.”

That was, actually, comforting. Ressler had grown to like and respect Samar a great deal over the past year. He knew her to be both formidable, and a woman of her word. Maybe this wasn't going to be the last time they saw each other.

This settled as much as it could be, Ressler went to talk to Aram. “You have a minute?”

“Sure,” said the younger agent. “What's going on?”

“My office,” said Ressler. He wasn't actually sure if there were fewer listening ears there, but at least it was quieter.

Once they were both inside, Don shut the door and gestured for Aram to sit. “Is there a way to completely erase the record of a phone call made to a particular cell phone?” he asked without introduction.

Aram's eyes widened, and his gaze went to the phone in Don's hand. “Did she--?”

Putting his fingers to his lips, Don pulled out a legal pad and wrote down, _Not sure if anyone else might be listening._ “Well?”

Coughing, Aram read what he wrote and said, “Uh, not really. The best thing to do is wipe the phone completely and get a new SIM, if you're worried about the data that's on it. Targeting specific call records isn't really feasible, although it should be. Sometimes you want a lighter touch than just wiping everything out and starting over, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.” Ressler sighed. He didn't really want to get a new phone just for calls from Liz – but he really, really didn't want her to stop calling, either. “Thanks, Aram.”

“Yep.” Aram gave him a meaningful look as he stood up, and said, “So, uh, I guess that means the phone your friend found can't really be refurbished the way he wanted.”

Smiling faintly, Ressler said, “Too bad. I'll tell him. Thanks, though.”

The next day, Ressler was glad he had taken the chance to check in with Aram. After work, Aram had found him and recommended that he put his phone's SIM into a new phone, and buy another one for his 'personal' phone that he would keep on him. “That is, if you're thinking you're going to continue getting calls from … someone you don't want anyone to know you're getting calls from,” he said. “Because it's pretty much a given that some data about the call will be stored on the phone itself, like you suspected.”

Ressler had nodded and thanked the man again. Aram just smiled wistfully. “How's she doing?”

He glanced at Aram sharply, and then let out his breath. There was no point in denying it, was there? And it wasn't like Aram was going to spread this around. “Okay, I think,” he said. “Scared, though, and tired.”

“Makes sense,” said Aram. He looked around the deserted street corner where they were standing. “Well, let her know I-- I said hi, if you talk to her again.” His eyes darkened. “And Samar, too. We were both pretty sure she had called more often than you let on.”

“I will.”

He had a new 'personal' phone the next day at work. This meant he left his actual phone, the one Liz had the number to, at home. It was a little bit of a risk, in case she called at an unusual time, but it wouldn't be really safe for him to answer at work, anyway.

A few hours after he got to work, there was a knock on his door. Before he could even invite in whoever it was, the door opened, and in walked a man Ressler recognized as the new deputy director of the FBI, Marshall Gilbertson. There were two other men in suits standing outside his office. Ressler stood up, very aware of what Liz had told him about this man. “Sir,” he said. “I would have been there at the door if I'd known you were coming.”

“No, it's my fault for not calling ahead, Agent Ressler,” Gilbertson said with a smile. He held out his hand, and Ressler shook it. “I'm glad to get the chance to meet you in person.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Ressler, as they both sat down. “I'm honored that you would come out here in person. I know you must be very busy.” He kept all traces of sarcasm out of his voice.

Gilbertson laughed. Despite the fact that he had to be ten years younger, with jet-black hair instead of Connolly's white, something about him felt the same as the Attorney General had felt. It set Ressler's teeth on edge. “Oh, I'm managing. And you, Director Ressler, I know you must be busy as well, so I won't keep you too long.”

The way he had just switched titles wasn't lost on Ressler. “What can I do for you, then?”

“This is really just a short visit, to meet you and see a little bit of how your operation is doing,” said the deputy director. “Of course I receive regular reports from your office, but there's nothing like an in-person visit, right?”

“Right.” Ressler gave what he hoped was a polite smile. “Anything in particular you'd like to hear about or observe?”

“I'd love a tour around the place before I go, if you can spare a few minutes.” The man's smile faded. “But before we get there, I do have one thing I'd like to talk about. It has to do with these articles that have been showing up in the papers lately.”

“Oh? You mean the ones about that supposed conspiracy?” he asked, keeping his tone uninterested.

Now Gilbertson's smile was less friendly. “Yes. Those. You saw the latest retractions that have been posted, as well.”

“I do try to keep informed,” said Ressler. His heart was starting to beat faster. He didn't like where this was going.

“Good, good.” Gilbertson leaned forward. “I've been told you also seem interested in staying informed about the so-called journalists who wrote those particular articles. That you were looking into their current whereabouts.”

_Damn._ With his best poker face, Ressler shrugged. “I thought it was just insane that a story like that had gotten as far as it did before any corrections or retractions were made, so I wanted to learn more about the people who broke the story.” He wasn't sure whether to keep going or not, and decided to change the wording of what he was going to say at least. “And then it did seem odd that no one seems to know where they are now, but I guess they made some people angry with their false information. Maybe they're scared to show their faces.”

Gilbertson had watched him closely throughout this whole statement, and now he nodded. “You're right that it was a wildly implausible story to begin with, but everyone loves a good scandal,” the man said. “And I'm sure those journalists are just being cautious, making sure things have blown over before they poke their heads out of the holes in the ground where they've hidden.” His voice got just the slightest bit harder on the final sentence. The threat was obvious. Then it lightened again. “No need to worry about them any further, though, Agent Ressler.”

“Sure,” Ressler said easily. “We can wait and see what happens when this all blows over.”

The man narrowed his eyes for a second, then smiled once more. “So, on another subject, I take it you haven't gotten any other calls from Elizabeth Keen or her partner in crime since the last tip she sent?”

“Nothing yet, sir. But we're still going through all the latest sightings and tips that have come in on either of them, as well as of course looking into the men they've delivered to us.” This subject change wasn't one that made him very comfortable, either.

“I'm sure.” Gilbertson folded his hands. “It's an interesting angle she's taking – trying to continue the Blacklist, and then following in Reddington's footsteps yet more by only contacting one particular agent to share her information. But this time there's no mystery: we know why this criminal chose this agent.”

Ressler clenched his jaw but kept his tone even. “What do you mean?”

“Well, just that she was your partner!” chuckled Gilbertson. Then his eyes widened. “Of course I wasn't meaning to cast aspersions on you or your … spotless service record. Elizabeth Keen's crimes don't need to reflect on you at all. Especially now that you're using all your available resources to track her down, though I'm sure that can't be easy for you.”

“Sir,” said Ressler truthfully, “the fact that she was my partner just makes me even more determined to be the one who finds her. Somehow I missed all of this until it was too late. I can't let that happen again.”

“That's what I wanted to hear.” The deputy director stood up, and shook Ressler's hand again. “Thank you, Director. Now, if you have time to give me that little tour, we can also discuss seeing about getting rid of that 'acting' in front of your title, hmm?”

As soon as Marshall Gilbertson and the men he had brought with him left, Ressler let out a long breath and went back inside his office. It couldn't be any more obvious that this visit had been meant to accomplish a number of purposes: to test him, to threaten him, and to remind him of the benefits of remaining cooperative. At least all the threats had been directed at him personally. That was something, he supposed. And he seemed to have answered all of the man's questions correctly. But he wished he knew what might be in store, for the task force and for himself, as a result of this little interaction.

~  
“You had her.”

Ressler stood next to the black van his team had been in, less than an hour ago, and waited for his boss to continue her angry rant. His head ached, but he wasn't going to sit down. Not when Agent Tyler still hadn't regained consciousness.

“You know I was watching the whole operation from the hotel, Agent Ressler,” Reven Wright continued, starting to pace back and forth. “I saw our teams converge on the location. There was no way for the target to escape. She had very few people with her. We had her! So I want to know,” she finished, stepping closer to him, “how you let her escape!”

Ressler met the woman's eyes. “I don't have a good excuse, ma'am,” he said evenly. “I have a theory, but I can't be sure if it's accurate or not, since I wasn't conscious when it must have happened.”

Wright sighed, and backed down fractionally. “Yes, I heard about Agent Tyler, and that you and several others were unconscious when the rest of the teams found you. I'm sorry you were injured. Please, share your theory.”

He glanced behind Wright, at the other agents who were still receiving first aid and cleaning up the scene. “I think Reddington and Keen might have had someone on the inside – or they still do,” he said, voice low. “Only the members of these teams – and you and Deputy Director Gilbertson – knew what we were planning. So it stands to reason someone leaked intel to the targets, and then used the confusion when the power went out to take out enough members of our teams that Keen could escape.”

The woman's eyebrows rose. “That would suggest more than one of these agents is compromised then, wouldn't it? I mean, it doesn't make much sense to me that one person would be able to take out half a dozen highly-trained fellow agents and get away, even with the lights out.” Despite her skepticism, Wright kept her voice quiet as well.

“Like I said, I don't have any proof to offer. Yet.” Ressler held his breath. If she was suspicious of him, then she would assume he had arranged Keen's escape somehow. And that would be the end of his command of the task force, if not his career.

“Find me some proof.” She looked at him closely. “And make sure you get checked out by the EMTs, Don. You're no use to anybody with an untreated head injury.”

At the hotel that night, Don took his extra-strength Tylenol and sat down with a sigh on his bed. He had seen her today, for the first time since he had let her leave the Post Office all those months ago. Sure, it had only been a glimpse before the lights went out and then someone knocked his lights out. But still. He had seen her. And he thought she might have seen him, too.

His phone rang – the phone he took with him on all the trips out of the country but otherwise left at home. Ressler hurried to pull it out of the inner pocket of his suitcase. Unknown caller. He accepted the call but didn't say anything at first. That was mainly because he didn't know how to react to the events of today's raid.

“Ressler. Ressler, are you there? Are you okay?” She sounded worried.

“I'm here,” he said. “I'm fine. Got a headache, but that's it.”

She let out a breath. “Good.”

“And you?”

“Me? I'm fine!” She was incredulous. “You don't need to worry about me, especially not after what I did to you and your team.”

“You had to get out of there. I get it,” he said, standing up just so he could go sit in the armchair. It wasn't that great of a chair, but at least he could rest his head against the back. “And no one was seriously hurt on our-- on the FBI teams.” He had been about to say “on our side”, but the idea of Liz on the other side was still not easy for him to acknowledge in so many words.

“It's true that I needed to get out,” she said, “and I'm glad no one's badly hurt. But that's not the whole story.”

He blinked. “If you mean you have someone on the inside, I already figured that much. We'll find out which one of them it was soon enough, since they're all--”

“We set the whole thing up,” she interrupted.

Ressler stopped talking. That was not what he had been expecting at all. “What do you mean?” he asked, aware that she would no doubt be able to hear his tension.

“You needed something more than just rumors of a sighting, and you needed more than the low-ranking members of that organization we've been giving you,” Liz said. “You needed something to prove to your bosses that you could find us. Find me.”

He tried to breathe normally. That was what she meant? “You set the _whole thing_ up. You fed us the tip that you'd be in that building at that time. That was all you.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Was the guy who took us out hidden in there somewhere ahead of time?” That actually made more sense than one of the agents being responsible for all of those who had been knocked out. Though of course that didn't mean that one of them wasn't playing Liz's side. “You know that Agent Tyler's in the hospital, right?”

There was a little gasp on the other end of the line. “I thought no one was badly hurt,” she whispered. “We... I checked before I left. I checked each of you.”

That brought him up short. If she had personally checked each of the agents that her guy knocked out, that meant she had, in fact, seen him up close. When he had no opportunity to see her. She had probably touched him, even. He shut his eyes.

“Ressler.” She was pleading now. “Say something.”

“I planned and led this raid.” He hadn't opened his eyes, and so he was seeing the events of the day replay themselves in his head. Getting knocked out right before he reached his goal – right before he reached the room where Liz was – was probably some kind of metaphor for the whole thing, now that he thought about it. “I went in on the assumption it was real intel, intel that my team and I discovered. I guess that was stupid of me to assume. But, uh, I suppose I should thank you for making sure I was okay after I walked into your trap.”

“That's not—” Liz paused, and he heard her sigh. “It wasn't like that.”

“Really?” Ressler's anger was not helping the pain pills have any effect. “Because it sure sounds like you and Reddington felt sorry for me and how ineffective I've been at my job, so you led me around, dropping breadcrumbs that I would follow so I'd end up right where you wanted me. Glad I didn't disappoint, at least.” He knew Reddington was a master at manipulation. But Liz – Liz had just very strongly implied she had been involved in planning this latest trick. That he was so predictable, and that Liz had relied on his predictability to pull this off – he wasn't sure which was a bitterer pill to swallow. No, that was a lie. He knew which was worse.

Liz took a breath. She was upset but not apologetic as she said, “It was the best way we could think of to buy you some credibility while staying ahead of the situation, Ressler. You need--”

“Staying ahead of the situation? You mean in control.” When she didn't speak right away, he shut his eyes again. “Good night, Liz. Next time, keep your pity to yourself.” He pushed the button to end the call just as she was starting to say something in response. Then he tossed the phone onto his suitcase and stood up. He wasn't sure he would be able to sleep at all tonight, despite his fatigue and aching head, but he needed to try.

~


	3. Chapter 3

~~  
She stared down at her phone for a few seconds, then set it down and dropped her head into her hands. Ressler was furious. And of course he was. Had she really, honestly thought he wouldn't be, once she told him the truth about today's events? She was relieved he was all right, as she had been since she felt for his pulse in the darkened hallway of the lower levels of that restaurant. (And that relief had been a separate thing from how good it had been to see him, even under those circumstances, even when he was out cold and couldn't see her.) But now she had broken his trust – in some ways even more so than she had by killing Connolly and then running.

Liz took the burner phone with her as she went out into the main room of their latest hotel suite. Red was there on the couch reading the newspaper, with Dembe seated in the armchair in the corner of the room. She handed Dembe the phone for him to dispose of, as usual, and then sat down across from Red with a heavy sigh.

“I take it Donald was not pleased with you by the time you reached the conclusion of your conversation?” He set down the newspaper on the coffee table.

“No, he wasn't.” Liz clasped her hands together. Even though it wasn't a surprise, it still hurt to have her former partner – one of her few remaining friends – angry at her. “I still think we should have tried to bring him in on the plan ahead of time.”

“Lizzie, we went over this numerous times, and I thought we had agreed,” said Red mildly. “It was too much of a risk. We can't be sure how much surveillance Donald is under, so the less we contact him and the shorter our conversations are, the better. I'm still not convinced you should be allowed to continue your sporadic calls, careful though you are.”

She glared at him, as she always did when he started talking about what kinds of things she was or wasn't _allowed_ to do. Thankfully the topic didn't come up all that often. But she wasn't interested in pursuing that argument right now, anyway. “Still,” she muttered. “He would have been okay with it if he were involved in the plan.”

Red nodded. “Yes, I'm sure you're right. Donald is a proud man, and very few people enjoy being manipulated. But consider the fact that we were successful, and no one was seriously injured, least of all Donald. And now Deputy Director Gilbertson and AG Reven Wright believe that he's able to track us effectively.”

“I know.” Liz sighed again. She hadn't gotten the chance to explain to Ressler about the rumors they had heard from their sources, that Gilbertson had been about to move to have Ressler replaced at the Post Office, if not outright gotten rid of. Not that it would have made him much less angry if she'd given him that excuse. “Although from what he told me, now they're going to be looking into the team members closely to see if one of them is a traitor.” That would mean more scrutiny for Ressler, as well.

“As we expected would happen,” said Red with another nod. “I advise you not to contact Donald for a while, Lizzie. I won't forbid you because I know that would just make you more likely to do it anyway, but it really will be safer for him and for us if we let things cool down for a while.”

Narrowing her eyes at that, Liz nonetheless voiced her agreement. “He probably doesn't want to hear from me for a while, anyway.” She hoped it would only be for a while.

Red tilted his head and gave her a faint smile. “Lizzie, you hurt Donald's feelings, yes, but consider this fact: he has never reported your non-business conversations with him, in all the months since you left, and he has been doing his best to clear your name of the false charges against you. I think it's safe to assume he'll recover from this offense.”

“I think it's a little more than hurt feelings,” she said, though she added, “but let's hope you're right.”

“I don't have to hope. I know I am.”

She scoffed, but was nonetheless slightly comforted. With this part of their plan having gone about as well as possible, they were clear to keep moving forward – without worrying that Ressler would be taken down by their enemies. At least not right away.

~~  
Liz made no attempt to contact him for three weeks after the raid in Paris. Don's anger at her lasted for two of those weeks, and then it was replaced with anxiety. There were more and more reported sightings pouring in, from all across Europe and the Middle East. Some of the people who saw her and/or Reddington were known bounty hunters, attracted by the reward money the FBI was offering. (Of course they didn't send in any tips to the FBI, but there was chatter that got back to the task force's ears.) Each time he heard about this kind of sighting, Don felt like he had to hold his breath until the next report came in. It chilled him to picture what would happen to her if someone else – _anyone_ else caught her. Not that he had completely developed his own plan for what he'd do if-- when he caught up to her for real. But he was working on it. He would put his plan into action the minute they had a solid lead that he was in a position to follow himself. Being the official director meant that the number of trips he could take halfway around the world had shrunk. This fact bothered him more than a little.

In the third week, Ressler got an email on his private phone. At first he was curious as to why Liz would email him at this number, instead of one of his other accounts. But when he saw the message, he understood. He felt a curious mixture of elation and alarm as he read:

_This is only for emergencies. If you ever need to, you can reach me at this email address. I'll check it every day, and it'll also send alerts to my phone._

He exited out of his inbox and set down the phone on his coffee table. This was unprecedented. This was the first time he'd been given a way he could contact her, instead of all contact coming the other way around. And that meant one of two things: one, she trusted him enough by now to know he wouldn't abuse this thing she was giving him, or two, she was afraid he was going to be experiencing an emergency sometime soon. Or, more likely, some combination of the two. Either way, he would respect her stipulation that it was for emergencies only – though he almost wanted to use it right now, just to ask her if she knew how close all of these bounty hunters were to her. She had to know, though. After all, she'd been keeping ahead of them.

He was surprised to get a call the next evening from an unknown number. He wasn't going to complain, though, and he smiled as he answered with, “Hey.”

There was a pause, and then a voice that definitely wasn't Liz's – or Reddington's for that matter – laughed once. “Hi. Uh, sorry I'm not who you thought I was. But I guess that answers my first question.”

It had been long enough that it took Ressler a minute to place that voice. “How the hell did you get this number?” he demanded.

Tom Keen didn't bother to answer the question. Instead, he just said, “Look, I know you have no reason to want to do anything for me, but all I wanted was to ask you two things. Then I promise I'll leave you alone.”

“You'd better.” Ressler was half-tempted to get Aram to try to trace this call – but that would involve using FBI equipment, most likely, and he wanted to keep this phone out of their reach entirely. He wasn't going to hang up, either. Not without finding out what this guy wanted. “Ask.”

“Well, I was going to ask if you've been in contact with her, but you kind of already answered that for me,” he started. There was amusement as well as something else in his voice, but he went on, “So I'll ask this first: do you know how she's doing? Is she okay?”

“I don't know why that's any of your business,” Ressler snapped. When he thought of everything this lying bastard had put Liz through, it still had the power to make him furious.

Tom – or whatever his actual name was – sighed. “So you just wanted me to ask my questions, but you weren't planning to answer?”

Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, Ressler said, “Fine. Last I heard, she's fine. And I'm sure you can guess who she's with.”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, sounding a little more uncertain. “My second question is, did she do it? Did she kill that guy they say she did?”

Any tension he had managed to lose when he answered Tom's first question came rushing back. “Why?” he shot back. “Don't tell me _you're_ judging her now. As if you have any room to say anything at all.”

“You know what, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called you,” the other man said. His voice was rising. “This was a last resort already, since--”

“She didn't give you a way of reaching her,” Ressler cut in. He was aware he hadn't entirely kept the smugness out of his voice, but he didn't really care. “That's too bad. I'm still not going to be your source of information on her … or your messenger, before you ask.”

Tom snorted. “Oh, don't worry. I'm done talking to you. There's only so much sanctimonious crap I'm willing to take, even for Liz.”

“If you're really concerned about her,” Ressler said, trying not to be nauseated as he imagined that might be true, “then why don't you do something useful like track down her enemies, instead of whining about the fact that she didn't leave you a forwarding address?” He ended the call then, before he could waste any more time on the guy.

He almost wondered whether he should warn Liz via that email she'd given him that her ex was looking for her. But then he shook his head. As much as it still galled him to admit it to himself, Tom apparently did care about Liz, in some fashion. He wasn't a threat to her. Next time Liz called, maybe he'd tell her about this little conversation. Or maybe not.

~  
Two Days Later

Ressler was only a few minutes late to the Post Office that morning. Although being late was unusual for him, he didn't understand why those few colleagues that were there already when he arrived – Aram included – looked at him in some combination of anxiety and other emotions he couldn't identify as readily. Before he could ask Aram what was going on, he heard Reven Wright's voice from the upper floor, outside his office. “Director Ressler,” she called. Her voice sounded sharp, almost angry. “In your office, please.”

This couldn't be good. He wondered which of the worst-case scenarios this might be. Taking a breath, Ressler hurried up the steps to where she was waiting. “What is it, ma'am?”

“Inside would be best,” the AG said, still in that same tone but quieter. As soon as she was inside, Ressler followed and closed the door. As he went around to stand behind his desk, Wright watched him. Then she took a step closer. “I've just received some very troubling information, Don.”

“What's that?” He held his breath. He hadn't been careless in how he dealt with Liz's communications with him. Surely that couldn't be it.

“An anonymous source just provided me with convincing evidence that strongly suggests you have a drug problem,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “One that you've tried to keep hidden.”

Ressler knew he hadn't been able to hide his reaction entirely. He watched her notice his flinch, and then sighed and sat down. This was it. This was the moment he had been dreading. He would have almost said it was a relief that it was finally here, except for the fact that he knew what was going to happen after he admitted it. And there was no point in not coming clean. He didn't know what this evidence was, and he didn't know why they had chosen to bring it to light now, but he had no doubt, judging on who this 'anonymous source' was, that it was damning. He raised his eyes to Wright's. “It's not a problem anymore,” he said steadily. “I haven't used in nearly a year.” He could give her the more exact number of days, but he had a feeling she wouldn't care to know.

Wright inhaled, and her eyes widened. “So you don't deny it.”

“No.” He shook his head, and shrugged. “I can guess who's behind this evidence, so even if I tried to deny it, I'm sure they would provide you with something else impossible to deny.” Prescription records, or something else that was supposed to remain confidential.

“Agent Ressler, the Bureau's policy regarding drug use is very clear,” she said. He thought he heard a hint of regret in her voice. “Zero tolerance. Plus, there's the fact that you kept your addiction hidden instead of seeking help through the proper channels.”

Ressler said nothing. He would have to try to contact Liz as soon as possible after this was over. Once he was out of this task force, and barring a miracle, out of the Bureau (the thought made his stomach turn to lead, even though he had tried to prepare himself for this eventuality), it would either be shut down or made to serve the Cabal's ends more directly. Aram would need to be protected, too.

The woman sighed again and said, “This has all been very sudden. I'll need to find a replacement for you before you go, ideally from among those already involved in this task force. That will probably take until the end of the day.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “And the thing is, I doubt strongly that whoever takes your place will be half as good at this job as you are, Agent Ressler.”

Ressler snorted and looked down at his desk. “Thanks for that.”

She gave him a sad smile. “You've done good work, Agent Ressler. I'll be sorry to see you go.”

“I appreciate that, ma'am.” He believed her; he knew he could be wrong, but it really didn't seem like she was under the Cabal's thumb. He hoped she would be able to hold out.

“I'll give you some time to start packing up your things,” Wright said after a moment of silence. “As I said, though, I'm not going to rush you out, since I need someone to be in charge until I find your temporary replacement.”

Once she had left his office, Ressler let out a long sigh and looked around the room. He had only occupied this place for a few months. Almost all of the progress he'd made toward clearing Liz's name of the charges of sabotage and conspiracy was because of information she and Reddington had given him. But on the other hand, he had made progress. He had accomplished things that those two were no longer able to do. They had relied on him and the task force to work within the system against the Cabal. And now that was over. He wished he had his other phone with him, so he could tell Liz right away. Of course, it was possible that she already knew.

He had only just started packing up his things when there was a knock on his door. Aram opened it before he could even invite the man in. “You've got to hear this,” Aram said, panting after his dash up the stairs and holding out his phone. “It's Samar.”

“What?” Ressler took the phone. “Agent Navabi?”

“Director Ressler,” she said. “I have intel to share with you, on the whereabouts of Elizabeth Keen.”

It took him several seconds to find his voice. “I'm listening,” he said at last, heart pounding. If this intel was from Samar, it was going to be good. Accurate. It was going to require follow-up. He stared across the office at Aram, and listened as Samar spoke.

When she ended the call, and he had handed the phone back to Aram, Ressler stood up straight and picked up the piece of paper on which he'd written the information Samar had given. She said she would send it in an email as well, but he needed to get started with this ASAP. “Do you know where the AG is right now?” he asked Aram.

“Downstairs on the phone,” Aram replied. He raised his eyebrows. “Is there some reason you need to run the plan to go find Li-- uh, Keen by her before you get everything moving?”

Don stared. “You mean she didn't tell you? I would've thought she'd make an announcement.” When Aram just shook his head, Don gave a wry smile. “I need to run it by her because I've been fired, Aram. So I kind of need to find out if I can still be involved in this, much less have the authority to lead it.”

Aram's jaw dropped as the two of them headed out of the office. “Fired? But – but why? I mean, they can't possibly think you haven't been doing your job well enough, because you have! If they need someone to go on record with that, I can--”

“Aram.” Ressler stopped at the top of the stairs, and the younger agent stopped a second later, waiting. Ressler sighed. He supposed Aram might as well hear it from him. There would probably be some kind of announcement at some point soon, but he owed Aram the courtesy of telling him himself. “She fired me because I got addicted to pills almost a year ago. I kicked the habit, but I never told anyone other than Keen.”

Aram was struck dumb for half a minute. “Whoa. Um. Okay.” His gaze went from Ressler's face to his leg. “Almost a year ago...”

“Yeah, it was after I recovered from the gunshot wound,” Ressler said. Then he gestured down the stairs. “Anyway.”

“Right.”

The two men hurried to find AG Wright, who was pacing back and forth in the War Room, a cell phone to her ear. When she saw them and noted the urgency of their expressions, she nodded and said to whoever she was calling, “I'm going to have to call you back in ten minutes. All right? Thank you.” Then she focused her attention on the agents. “What is it?”

Ressler told her what Samar had just told him, with Aram eagerly backing up what he said. “Agent Navabi made it clear that this is very time-sensitive,” he finished.

Wright stared at him for several seconds without speaking. Then she gestured for them to move to a quieter corner, and folded her arms. “Go ahead and ask, already, Agent Ressler,” she said. “I can practically see the question hovering above your head.”

“Ma'am, I know I-- I'm going to have to leave the Bureau,” he said, in a low voice. “I understand that. But Agent Navabi asked me specifically, and is going to be sending me more detailed information in a few minutes. And since you said you don't have a replacement--”

“That's what this call was about, actually,” the woman interrupted with a frown. “Apparently Deputy Director Gilbertson has someone in mind, and he wants me to sign off on his choice as soon as possible. To 'smooth over the transition', as he said.”

Don's heart plummeted. “I see.” So this was the Cabal's plan, then. Maybe they had only been letting him stay in his position for as long as it took them to find and groom a suitable replacement from their own people. And now this person was going to come in and take his place, on the day they finally had a solid lead on Liz's location? On the day they might actually find her?

“However,” Wright said, eying him, “I don't know that I like how this looks – you being forced out of your job on the same day Marshall Gilbertson finds his perfect replacement. So I'm inclined to say you can take charge of the field operation to apprehend Keen, while this person Marshall wants stays behind and orients himself on how things are done around here.”

“Really?” Aram beamed, and looked at Ressler with the same surprised glee.

“But it would be with the understanding that this is your last case, your last mission, Agent Ressler,” said Wright, again with that hint of regret. “Which means you'll be handing in your badge and your gun at the end of it.”

“Yes, ma'am, I will,” said Ressler. He started to breathe a little easier. No matter what happened to him after this, at least he could do everything in his power to find Liz and see what he could do to keep her from ending up in a black site somewhere.

In fact, he thought to himself, as he got ready to get on the plane with the team that would be heading for Cairo, if it came down to it, he had very little to lose now. It was not exactly a nice thought, but it was oddly reassuring.

“Aram,” Ressler said, as he passed by the agent's desk during the process of gearing up, “I'm going to need you on the ground in Cairo, to be in charge of comms and surveillance. You good with that?”

“Uh, sure,” said Aram, with only a little bit of hesitation. “How much time do I have to get ready?”

“As close to fifteen minutes as you can make it would be great.” He could almost feel the clock ticking.

“Yes, sir,” Aram replied. He looked resolved now, as he lowered his voice. “Anything I can do to help make sure it's us who catch her.”

Panic threatened to rise up and choke Ressler then, as he once again imagined what would happen if it wasn't her friends in charge of taking Liz into custody. But he swallowed it back and nodded to Aram before striding off.

The main thing Ressler regretted during the trip to Cairo was that he'd had no chance to go home and retrieve his phone before he left. (He'd had to rely on the go bag he always had ready in his office.) That worried him a fair amount, in fact. There would be no way for her to contact him if she needed to, and it would be risky for him to send anything to that emergency email address, which he had memorized. The issue was enough of a distraction that he didn't have much trouble ignoring the whispers and stares of a few of the other agents on the plane with him.

But when they were about to start their descent, Ressler stood up and said loudly, “I'm not sure what you all might have heard about me today from the AG, or from other sources. Some of it may be true, and some may not. Whatever you've heard, though, please be assured I am in command of this operation. I don't intend to allow anything or anyone to compromise our goal: the successful capture of Elizabeth Keen. Is that understood?”

The other agents all made it clear that they understood. Ressler nodded, and met Aram's eyes for a moment. It was time to do this.

~


	4. Chapter 4

~  
At first, the operation went off without a hitch. They arrived in Cairo and made it to the section of the city where Samar had directed him. It was crowded and hot, and the twelve-man team wove through the narrow streets in their two vans as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. They stopped several blocks away from the riverfront. Liz was supposed to be meeting someone in an old building right on the river. Samar's intel didn't include a location for Reddington, which worried Ressler, but they had agreed that they should assume that he would be nearby.

When they met up with Samar, she was standing in the little street corner park where she had said she'd be, her hair under a scarf as she chatted with a guy Ressler didn't recognize. As soon as she saw Ressler and the half of the team he had with him, though, she broke off the conversation and walked over to him. “She just arrived at the location,” she told him. “I have eyes on the flat, but of course I'm very willing to share those resources with your team.”

“I have a hunch my agent in charge of comms and surveillance would be willing to share, as well,” said Ressler with a small smile, as the two of them walked to where the vans were waiting. And in fact, as soon as Samar came into view, one of the vans opened and Aram jumped out.

“Sa-- Agent Navabi!” he said, smiling. “It's good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too, Aram,” she said, returning the smile. “And you know you can call me Samar.”

“Okay. I will. Samar.” He beamed again, and then cleared his throat. “So, uh, what's the situation?”

They briefed everyone on the plan again, and then moved out in two groups. The apartment where Liz was meeting her contact had six guards around the outside. They would take them out, as close to soundlessly and all at once as possible, before they went into the building.

“How are we doing, Aram?” Ressler asked quietly, from his position in the yard of the apartment. They were hidden by trees from their vantage point, though that made it harder to see the guards' positions.

“About thirty more seconds, and they should all be in optimum position,” the agent reported.

“Copy that. All agents, status update.”

Everyone reported in that they were ready, just before Aram announced it was time. They went in.

The guards went down without much trouble, although one of them got off a shot. “They know we're coming now,” Ressler told everyone over the comms. “Get ready for a fight – but remember, our orders are to _capture_ Keen, not kill. We need to take her alive. Are we clear?” He wasn't afraid to harp on that until he got confirmation from all of his team. Thankfully, AG Wright, at least, really did want to take Keen in alive if at all possible. And Ressler would do everything in his power to make sure it was possible, even if the wanted poster did say to consider her armed and dangerous.

He heard the sound of gunfire come over the comms, from the other half of the team (which was led by Samar). Trying not to flinch, Ressler moved his men forward, and they quickly sealed off all the exits from the building. There was no sign of her yet.

They entered the building. The main level was clear except for one lookout, who they disarmed and took out of commission easily. That left the top level. Ressler had an uneasy feeling when this became clear. It didn't make sense to him that she would corner herself like this – although he supposed there was a fire escape ladder on the second floor, so she wasn't entirely trapped. And there was also the option of jumping out of the building into the river. But those both seemed unlikely.

They entered the last uncleared room in the building. Ressler had been doing his best not to hold his breath as each room was cleared. There she was, though it took him a half-second to recognize her with her hair under a scarf. Her hands were up as she faced the team. Ressler's heart was pounding from more than just the exertion of having moved quickly through the building, as he advanced toward her and the four men with her. She looked tense, and she was also breathing hard. But she didn't look scared as she watched him get closer. She didn't speak, either.

“Everyone, stay where you are and keep your hands in the air,” Ressler ordered. His voice didn't shake, and neither did his hands as he aimed his weapon at Liz. A small part of his brain was impressed that he could manage that feat. “Elizabeth Keen, you're under arrest.”

It was Samar who stepped forward and began to fasten the cuffs onto her. Liz didn't resist, although she gave Samar a look that was-- the closest Ressler could come to a description was 'amused.' That was _definitely_ not reassuring. As he supervised the arrest of everyone else in the room, he began to wonder if this wasn't another case of--

Just then, one of the men on his team – Agent Franks, Ressler saw quickly – stepped forward and put his gun to the side of Ressler's head. At the same time, one of the men on Samar's half of the team did the same thing to her. Ressler froze, his gun still in his hand. “What the hell is this?!”

“Sorry, Agent Ressler,” said Franks, and he did sound at least a little regretful. “But we're taking command of this operation now. Put down your weapon, slowly. You, too, Agent Navabi. Everyone else, stay where you are. You don't want to make us shoot your team leaders, do you?”

“Aram,” Ressler said, wondering why he hadn't heard from his friend already. Surely he hadn't missed what was happening. “Aram, call for backup, now!”

Franks sighed. “We're jamming all communication coming from this location. He can't hear you.”

_Shit._ At least Aram would probably realize something was wrong, but who knew how long it would take him to get help? Ressler watched Liz's eyes widen as both of her old friends were disarmed. Ressler grunted slightly as his arms were forced behind his back, and his wrists were cuffed. “Who is 'we', exactly, Agent Franks?” Samar asked. She was receiving the same treatment. “Or Agent Nelson?” She directed this to the man who was behind her, putting the handcuffs on her wrists.

“I bet you know who we work for,” replied Nelson without looking up. “It's best if you don't resist.”

Ressler allowed himself to be led over to the corner of the room, since the gun was still at his head. The rest of the agents in the room were looking around in uncertainty. That was when Nelson spoke to the two men who were closest to Samar and him. “We're going to need your help. Get the prisoner.”

“What? No!” Ressler took a step forward, only to have the muzzle of Franks' gun dig into his temple. Liz was being dragged to her feet by the two confused, alarmed agents – and now she herself looked like she was trying to hide her panic. “What are you doing with her?”

“Our bosses have been looking for her for a long time,” Nelson said. The quiet, unemotional way he spoke was somehow more chilling than if he had sounded angry or pleased. “They have you to thank for finally tracking her down.”

At these words, Liz looked up and stared Ressler directly in the eyes. He drew back. Was she going to think--? “No! No, I...” He swallowed. “Please don't do this,” he said, tearing his gaze away from hers and glaring at Agent Nelson. “Just let us take her into custody.”

“Not going to happen, Agent Ressler,” said Franks, pressing the gun even harder into his skin. “Though I gotta say, it's touching to see how much you care about her. Guess those rumors are true, too.”

At that moment, there was a sharp crack outside. It sounded a lot like a gunshot. Everyone turned in that direction – and Liz used the distraction to attack the two men holding her arms. Despite her cuffs, she was able to get free of their grip and nearly incapacitate both of them before Franks and Nelson could do more than shout in alarm. Ressler met Samar's gaze in the next instant, and the two of them joined in the fray.

As Don dove to knock Franks to the ground with his shoulder, the door to the room burst open. At least a dozen men poured in, all armed. They were followed by the familiar figures of Dembe and behind him, Raymond Reddington. But this time it was Franks who used Don's distraction to deliver a punch to his face that sent him tumbling backward to the ground. Don blinked, shaking his head to clear it.

The other agents seemed to be divided in their attentions between Liz, the two traitor agents, and Reddington's men. It was chaos. As he tried to regain his bearings, Ressler coughed and shouted for his men to secure the prisoner and get out. But even if they heard him, it didn't make much difference. Reddington's people had subdued most of the agents in the room. Samar was still fighting with Nelson. One of the men who had just entered the room was next to Liz to remove her handcuffs, while another stood next to them and fired at anyone who approached. Don couldn't see Reddington.

Struggling upright, Ressler was about to stand when Franks barreled into him, knocking the wind out of him as he hit the floor again. The man pulled him up so that he could punch him again. “You did this, didn't you?” he growled, as Ressler tried to fight him off. “You and that bitch planned all of this.”

Ressler finally found himself in a good position to drive his knee into Franks' groin. The man collapsed immediately, and Ressler rolled over so that he could get to his feet. He was still handcuffed, of course, so there was no way he was going to, for example, pick up one of the guns that had been dropped in the course of this chaos, but he was still damn well not going to let this guy get away with what he had done.

The room had started to clear. Half of Reddington's men – and Red himself, and Liz and Dembe – were nowhere to be seen. Samar had managed to make it so that her cuffed hands were in front of her, rather than behind her back. She and Nelson were still fighting, with a few of the other FBI agents attempting to join in. She would be fine. He needed to find Keen. But he didn't have the chance to look around for more than five seconds before someone grabbed him by the right arm.

He spun to face whoever it was, shaking off their grip as he did so. But it was Agent Tyler, one of the men who Ressler thought had been very unwilling to let Franks and Nelson take control. “Agent Ressler, sir, we should get out of here,” he said.

“Yeah. Unlock my cuffs, would you?”

Tyler shook his head. “No time, sir. We've got a boat waiting to get you and the rest of us who can walk out of here ASAP.”

“A boat?” Ressler stared toward the balcony that overlooked the river. “Whose?”

“Come on.” Suddenly, Tyler was shoving him toward the door that exited toward the balcony. When Ressler immediately pushed back, the younger agent hissed, “It's Reddington's boat, sir! Are you going to come, or what?”

“Reddington's?!” So they did have an inside man. Ressler stopped struggling and hurried with Tyler out onto the balcony. There was, in fact, a large-ish motorboat on the river in front of the apartment. He didn't see Reddington or Liz, but Dembe was standing on the deck. “And we get from here to there how exactly?” he asked. “You better not be expecting me to get down there with cuffs on.” He turned to look at Agent Tyler just in time to see a bullet strike him in the forehead. The man gasped once, crumpled against the railing, and then slid into a heap on the wooden floor of the balcony.

“You totally ruined this,” Agent Franks said, his expression one of rage and fear. “This was supposed to be an easy, in-and-out grab. No one was supposed to get hurt. No one outside of the team was even supposed to notice it had gone down.” Sirens could be heard converging on the location. Franks kept his weapon trained on Ressler's head.

Ressler spared a moment to wonder if Aram had called in any backup yet. Then he cleared his throat. “Yeah, I guess your bosses wouldn't be very happy about how this went down. Did they tell you to kill all the witnesses if it all went wrong?” He nodded to the gun pointed at him.

“Well, you're not much good to them now – since this was your last mission,” Franks spat.

This idea that was brewing in Ressler's mind was a dangerous one, he knew – but it looked to be his only option, if he didn't want to end up getting shot in the head like Agent Tyler. “Are you sure about that?” he said, taking a very small step closer to the man. “If I really did set this up with Keen, don't you think it might be interesting to your bosses that she trusts me that much?”

Franks blinked, and lowered his weapon halfway. “So you're saying it's true.”

“I'm saying you don't want to kill the person that can get Elizabeth Keen to show up at a certain time and a certain place,” he said. He felt like the worst kind of traitor as he said the words, even though if things went as he hoped, Liz would never need to know anything about this conversation.

Franks hesitated, and then snarled as he raised the gun again, “You're just trying to save your own skin!”

Behind him, Ressler saw Samar moving very slowly toward the door to the balcony. She was limping slightly and there were bruises forming on her face, but there were no cuffs on her – and she was holding a gun. Which meant that all he had to do was play for time.

“Of course I'm trying to stay alive,” he replied with a shrug – and then a wince at how that motion revealed how much his body ached. “That doesn't mean it isn't worth considering, don't you think?”

The agent seemed to be thinking this over. Then, abruptly, he spun around and pointed his weapon at Samar. “Don't try anything, Navabi! I've still got--”

Before he could finish his sentence, Ressler charged forward. Someone fired a shot, and a second later, Ressler collided with Franks at full speed. Franks yelled and dropped his gun as the two of them went over the edge of the rickety wooden balcony.

He only had time to take a deep breath before he and Franks hit the river. The shock of the water closing over him threatened to make him exhale, but he held his breath, kicking his legs as he made it back to the surface. Without his hands free, he had to kick constantly to keep himself from submerging again. This was on top of how he was being dragged down by the weight of all his tactical gear, especially the vest.

He started to propel himself on his side toward the riverbank, but he hadn't gone more than a few feet before Franks seized him by the back of the vest. “You're not … getting out of here so easily,” he said, between panting breaths.

The guy was single-minded, Don had to give him that. He did his best to kick out at Franks, and connected a few times. But Franks kept pulling him, back toward the building they had just exited in such a dramatic fashion. Don coughed as his face went under the water for a second. After the fighting he'd already done on dry land, this waterlogged combat was even more exhausting than it would have been if it had come first. He could still hear sirens getting closer, and when his ears weren't submerged in the river, he could hear shouting, too. He couldn't see far enough to know whether Reddington's boat was still anywhere nearby. If the police were coming, he almost hoped it wasn't.

Finally, Franks stopped dragging him, only to start to try to push him under. At this, Ressler summoned up all of his remaining energy and fought. Fear gave him an added burst of strength. They wrestled at the surface of the river for several minutes. When it felt like Franks was about to succeed in pushing him under, Ressler took as much of a breath as possible and tried to find a grip on the other man, to take him with him. But that turned out to be impossible, with the way his hands were angled in the cuffs. The water closed over his head. He kicked and flailed, and one foot made a satisfying connection with Frank's midsection.

Ressler opened his eyes in the dark water to see a stream of air bubbles escape from his opponent's lungs. Franks released him, and they both rose back to the surface. The water wasn't extremely deep this close to the bank, but it was deep enough to be drowned, Ressler knew. It didn't take much.

He tried again to do his ungainly version of a sidestroke to get closer to shore. But after just a few seconds, Franks grabbed him by the wrists and forced him under. With his eyes open, Ressler saw as he was dragged backward that Franks was headed for an old, rusted length of chain around one of the stilts of the building above. One end of the chain was long enough to drift in the current. He looked up. They were just deep enough here that if... _Oh, God._

Though all of his limbs and his lungs burned with fatigue, Ressler struggled against the other agent's efforts. But all he managed to accomplish was to make it take a little longer for the chain to be twisted through his cuffs. Then he was released.

Immediately, Don kicked as hard as he could toward the surface. The chain pulled taut when his face was just inches away from the surface. He looked around. Franks was yards away by now, almost at the bank. Meanwhile he was starting to feel dizzy from lack of oxygen. The instinctive urge to try to breathe was becoming overpowering. He swam the few feet back toward the post and fumbled with the chain between his hands. But he wasn't making any progress, he could tell. If he could even see what he was doing... No. There was no chance of that. He was going to die here.

With one last glance up at the light filtering through the river water, Don shut his eyes. If he could have picked the way he would go, this wouldn't have been it. Drowning wasn't an easy death. It wasn't even cold enough for him to be numb yet. And of course, there was a lot more he had wanted to do with his life. At the very least, he had wanted to clear Liz's name of the lesser charges, and help her take down the Cabal. He had wanted to be able to see her safe, not at the end of the barrel of a gun.

He couldn't hold his breath any longer. It was impossible. He opened his mouth. There was no way to quell the panic when there was no air to breathe, only water. Fortunately, he didn't have to panic and thrash around for too long before he blacked out.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for any Cairo inaccuracies. Any errors in geography, etc. are totally my fault.
> 
> And, uh, sorry for the cliffhanger? Heh.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter posted! It's a little shorter than some of the previous ones, but it definitely resolves the cliffhanger, at least. :)
> 
> I think there will only be one more chapter after this. Thanks so much for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting!

~  
He couldn't breathe. There was something very unfair about this. He had thought he was finished with this. He coughed and coughed, vaguely aware that there were hands on him, rolling him onto his side. Water. His lungs and his stomach were full of river water. He retched and coughed until his whole body hurt, and then he lay there, taking deep breaths of desperately-needed air. He had been rolled back onto his back at some point, but there was something soft and warm under his head, propping it up. Then, once he had taken several breaths without coughing, something touched his face. He opened his eyes – and looked right into Liz's worried face, above his own. She was holding an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, which he was only too happy to make use of. His eyes slipped shut again.

“It's good to have you back with us, Donald,” said a familiar voice just then. “We need to talk.”

Ressler's eyes snapped open. Reddington was crouched at his feet, with a small plastic box next to him that it took Ressler several seconds to realize was a portable defibrillator unit. It was only then that he noticed that his vest and outer clothing had been removed, and his chest was bare. The rest of him was wrapped in blankets. He fumbled for the mask over his face, and Liz let him remove it. “My heart stopped?” he asked. His voice was so hoarse it didn't even sound like his voice. Plus, his throat hurt like crazy. He swallowed painfully.

“You were in ventricular fibrillation, and you weren't breathing,” Reddington said with a nod. “Hardly surprising, since by the time we found you, you must have been underwater for nearly twenty minutes.”

He blinked and tried to absorb this information. He had, for all intents and purposes, been dead under the waters of the Nile River. But Reddington and Liz had found him and revived him, even though he had come to Egypt in order to hunt them down.

He looked around as well as he could without moving, since he had the strong feeling that wouldn't go over well with his exhausted body right now. He was on the deck of a boat (presumably the same one he had seen from the balcony of the apartment building), with no one else visible from where he was. The sky was darkening around them. His head was still lying on-- He met Liz's gaze again, startled. She had propped him up on her thigh. Liz just gave him a very small smile that did nothing to hide the tears in her eyes. “We were afraid you weren't going to make it,” she said quietly.

“Yes, it was a near thing,” said Reddington. There was genuine relief in his smile as he added, “But you pulled through, thankfully.”

A thought occurred to him then, and he sat up. “Aram! Samar--” Grimacing, he fell back and shut his eyes. His chest felt like he'd taken a beating, and his head ached horribly. The world had started to spin, too. He felt Liz put her hand on his shoulder.

“Agents Mojtabai and Navabi are fine. Agent Navabi was able to extricate herself from the aftermath of your operation at the apartment, and she's currently on her way back to the nearest Mossad base.” He could hear Reddington smile again. “And Agent Mojtabai was persuaded to accompany her, once he'd heard you had been found. He went with her for safety reasons, of course, owing to the incontrovertible fact that your FBI team was compromised by at least two double agents.”

At first, this last piece of news made Ressler smile, too. He could bet it hadn't taken too much effort to persuade Aram to go with Samar. And Samar would definitely make sure he was safe. But then his smile faded. Their task force was in ruins now. The only one of them still in DC was Harold Cooper – and now, who knew what might happen to him? What if the Cabal decided to take action against him once they realized what they had lost?

“You have a decision to make, Donald,” said Reddington then, “and I'm sorry, but you must make it quickly.” As soon as Ressler had opened his eyes and met his, the man went on, “We're currently on our way upriver from where you tracked Lizzie down. So far, the police haven't bothered us, but that may well not last. I'm planning to have the captain pull in near the home of an acquaintance of mine, who won't mind if we lie low there for a while. We should arrive there in less than ten minutes. Before we do, you'll need to have considered whether you want to return to your home in DC, or whether you want to decide that your work inside the system is over.”

Ressler stared. He had less than ten minutes to make this decision? “What happens if I choose the first option?” he asked, having pushed aside the oxygen mask.

Liz cleared her throat. “Then we have to drop you off when we land, and then you wait for the police to find you,” she said. She bit her lip. “It's up to you what you tell them about how you got out of the river.”

He sat up then, much more carefully than last time. It still made his head ache and made him aware of how sore he was, but at least he wasn't dizzy. Liz sat up as well, and offered him a hand. He looked at her, but didn't take it. “How about the second option?”

It was Reddington who answered this time. “If you choose to cut your losses and leave DC, then we can offer you as much or as little assistance as you want with starting a new life.”

Like a blow to the gut, Don remembered what would be waiting for him if he did go back to the Post Office: nothing. No command, no job. At best, he would be allowed into the building one last time, to collect his things and hand over his badge and his gun to whoever the Cabal had hand-picked to be his replacement. On the other hand, if he accepted this offer, there would be no turning back. He would either be throwing in his lot with two of the FBI's Most Wanted, or trying to go it alone. “I can't possibly make that kind of a decision right away,” he said, rubbing a hand across his face and then wincing at the bruises from Franks' fists. “I don't see the urgency, either. Tell me if I'm missing something, but is there a reason why I can't at least lie low at your friend's house for as long as you're there?” He coughed once more, and then reached to take Liz's hand that she was still holding out. With her help, he got to his feet with a minimum of almost falling back over. A breeze blew by at that moment, and he shivered slightly.

“Red,” said Liz quietly, though he knew she was watching him closely rather than Reddington, “Ressler's heart wasn't functioning up until three minutes ago. I think we can give him a little more time to recover before we all make any more big decisions.”

The other man was silent for a few seconds. Then he stood up as well, and nodded. “Very well. Donald, you may accompany us to the safe house.” He hesitated, and then went on, “I don't wish to rub salt in the wound, but I think you should know that Lizzie and I are both aware of what the Cabal has done to force you out of the Bureau. We can all assume that if you do decide to return to DC, you will no doubt be under close watch.”

Ressler just nodded, his gaze dropping to the deck.

“In the meantime, please be aware that if you have trouble breathing, you continue to cough and have chest pain, and if you suddenly become extremely tired or disoriented, you may need emergency care,” Reddington continued. “The amount of water you inhaled could lead to secondary drowning – and since you already effectively drowned once today, twice would be excessive.”

At that, he gave Reddington a look, even as he appreciated the warning. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks for that.”

He leaned on Liz until they made it to the stairs down to the lower deck. The stairs were too narrow for two people side by side, so at Liz's gesture he went first, gripping onto the railing tightly. Obviously, he thought to himself, he had misjudged how big this boat was when he'd seen it from the balcony. It was more like a small yacht than anything else. Or maybe it was a different boat. Anyway.

Meanwhile, his head throbbed, his chest hurt in multiple places (which he thought was more from having been shocked with a defibrillator after having been in a fight than from his lungs), and he was utterly exhausted. But he made it below deck – and then almost ran into one of the men who had been in the room with Liz earlier. Who he and his team had arrested. The young man raised his eyebrows and then pulled out a gun. “What the hell are you doing here, G-Man?”

Before Ressler could say anything, Liz stepped into view from the stairwell. “Put it away, Eddie. Can't you tell he's not a threat right now?”

“Makes it easier to get rid of him,” Eddie pointed out.

“That's not going to happen.” Liz regarded the man with a stare not unlike the one Ressler had observed Reddington use many times on people who needed some convincing that he was serious.

Eddie shrugged and put his weapon away. “Fine. But don't come complaining to me when he sells us all out, all right?”

Once Eddie had left, Liz put Ressler's arm over her shoulder again. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Um, you can sit in here for now.” She nodded toward the room on their left that looked to be the boat's kitchen/dining area. Ressler sat down gratefully on the padded bench seat by the tiny table. He used the opportunity to zip up the jacket he was wearing. Not his. He tried not to think about whose it might be.

“You thirsty?” Liz gestured to the shelf above the little fridge, which was full of water bottles.

Ressler snorted. “I think I've had my fill of water for a while, actually. Both my stomach and my lungs.”

“Ah. That makes sense.” She looked like she wanted to smile. “So, soda then? I think there's some root beer somewhere in these cupboards. Unless you want tea or coffee...”

“I'll take the soda.” Liz had turned away, so she missed the flash of pain that crossed his face. Somehow the fact that she still remembered his favorite (non-alcoholic) drink made it impossible for him to ignore how long it had been since they were on the same side – how long it had been since he had even seen her up close, and yet how good it was to see her. Even in these shitty circumstances. His eyes stung for a moment.

Evidently he hadn't quite managed to bring himself back under control by the time she turned around with a can of root beer. She stopped, still holding onto the can. “Ressler? You okay?”

“Yeah. Well, other than that whole almost dying thing,” he said, trying for a smile.

She wasn't fooled. “That's not what I meant.” She set the beverage on the table in front of him.

Ressler took the can and popped it open. He didn't look at her. He had to not look at her, if he wanted to maintain his composure. All these months of only having contact with her by phone, and it hadn't fully occurred to him how much worse it all would be when they were face to face. “I'm … just having a hard time processing everything that's happened in the past couple of days, okay?” That was the truth, although not all of it.

“Okay.”

Before either of them could speak further, Dembe appeared in the doorway. “Raymond would like to speak with you, Elizabeth,” he said. “He's upstairs.”

“I'll be right there,” she said. Her gaze hadn't left Ressler. He could feel it, even though he wasn't looking at her.

“It's urgent,” Dembe said, looking apologetic. He glanced at Ressler. “If you're concerned about Agent Ressler's safety, I will stay here and speak to anyone who may not understand why he's here.”

Liz sighed. “Is that all right, Ressler?”

“Go,” he said. “And I don't need a...” He trailed off, considering again how beat-up he felt right now, both physically and emotionally. “Never mind.”

“All right. I'll be back.” She gave him a strained smile and departed.

When the two men were alone, Dembe looked at Ressler, his face serious. “I'm glad you survived the river, Agent Ressler.”

“Thanks.” There were too many thoughts and anxieties whirling around in his head for him to think of anything else to say, so Ressler just kept quiet and sipped his soda. At least he didn't have to worry about Dembe filling the silence with a lot of chatter. The quiet lasted several minutes, until something occurred to Ressler. “Who found me? In the river, I mean? Do you know?”

Dembe waited until a man Ressler didn't recognize, who had just come into view, passed by them. Then he replied, “Elizabeth insisted we could not leave the area until we knew what happened to you. So we had a man watching your fight with the Cabal agent. He reported when you didn't surface.”

Don nodded. That explained how they knew where to look. Before he could ask his next question, though, Dembe anticipated it. “It was Elizabeth who went into the water to find you. She untangled you from the chain, but she needed my assistance to bring you back to the surface and get you onto the boat.”

So Liz had led the charge, but it had been a team effort. And Reddington, it seemed, had been the one to actually restart his heart. He looked down at the faint bruises the cuffs had left on his wrists. That made it at least twice that the man had saved his life. Of course, Liz had saved his life many more times than that, when they were partners. After another pause, Ressler looked up at Dembe. “Well … thanks.”

The other man gave a faint smile, but otherwise didn't reply.

When Liz returned a few minutes later, Ressler had felt the boat slow and come to a stop. He got to his feet slowly, waving away Dembe's silent offer of help, and was standing in the doorway of the tiny room when Liz arrived. “You ready for another walk?”

“Guess we'll find out,” he replied. Leaning on her like he had before, Ressler made his way to the stairs. It was, naturally, much more effort to go up the stairs than it had been to go down. By the time he reached the top, he was breathing hard and gripping the railing to keep from falling. But Liz and Dembe were behind him, and – to his mild surprise – Reddington was waiting at the top to offer him a hand. He took it.

“I'm afraid there's another uphill climb before we get to the vehicle, Donald,” said Reddington after he had made it onto the main deck. “But after that you can feel free to fall asleep. Dembe can carry you into the safe house.”

Ressler raised his eyebrows as he pictured that. “No offense, but I'll just stay awake.”

Dembe didn't seem offended.

Once the group made it up the riverbank to the waiting SUV, though, Ressler was almost exhausted enough to contemplate sleep, after all. That was even before he broke out into a coughing fit once he reached the vehicle, and Dembe and Red had to help him into the middle row of seats. As he sat with his head against the back of his seat, eyes closed and trying to breathe slowly, he was aware that Liz sat down next to him.

“That didn't sound very good,” she said, as the car began to move. “I'm starting to think we need to be more worried about infection than we do about secondary drowning.”

Ressler made a sound of acknowledgement. “I'm sure that water isn't very clean.” His voice was hoarse again, unsurprisingly. He wondered for a moment what the hell Reddington would do if the former head of the task force dedicated to hunting him and his … whatever Liz was to him ended up needing a hospital. He probably had doctors on-call in every city he ever spent time in.

“We'll see to it that you get medical attention when we arrive at the safe house, Donald,” Reddington said then, confirming Ressler's guess. “The Nile is known for many things, but purity is not one of them, as you say.”

The trip to the safe house couldn't have taken that long, but it was, in fact, difficult for Ressler to stay awake the whole way. He was pretty sure he'd dropped off a few times.

“Hey.” Liz touched him on the shoulder at one point. “We're almost there.” She was speaking quietly enough that Reddington and Dembe, who were conversing in the front, probably couldn't hear.

He opened his eyes and sat up. “'Kay. Thanks. I'll, uh, try to stay awake.”

Liz continued to look at him, until he finally raised an eyebrow and said, “What? You have to have seen me looking worse.” Sitka sprang to mind as an example. At least he hoped he didn't look as bad now as he must have then.

“No, it's not that,” she said. She took a breath. “It's just … it's weird that I can just turn and see you here. It's been such a long time.”

Ressler sighed and turned to look out through the tinted window. “Yes, it has.” He was having a similar issue adjusting to the idea that Liz was really here, with him, and talking to him. She looked good – maybe a little bit thinner, and her hair was getting longer, but otherwise just about the same. That was an illusion, though. So much had changed.

The fifteen-minute ride to the safe house provided Ressler enough rest that walking to the door of the large, secluded house didn't leave him totally winded. But was evening now – almost seven, by the clock on the wall of the sitting room – and Ressler knew he wasn't going to be able to keep going for much longer. Not without some real sleep.

“How long are you guys planning to stay here?” Ressler asked, as he sat down on the couch at Liz's insistence.

“Ideally, not more than twenty-four hours,” Reddington answered. He sat down in the armchair across from Ressler. “The current plan is: we eat dinner, we sleep, and then we spend tomorrow inside, under the radar. For you, Donald, tomorrow will also include a visit from a doctor friend of mind, and then making a decision about your future.”

He nodded. It was nice to hear no one was expecting him to reach a decision tonight, because that was not going to happen. Most of that was due to his exhaustion, but part of it was because he just really, really didn't want to think about it right now. It was probably cowardly to so totally avoid considering his options, but right now he didn't care.

Ressler managed to last through a dinner of local street food: pita sandwiches, lamb kebabs, tea, and some kind of sweet cake for dessert. He was aware that Reddington was expounding at length about most of the items, but he didn't bother to pay attention. It was all tasty, and he needed all his energy to focus on staying awake. Probably the jet lag from the flight to Egypt wasn't helping, he thought vaguely, as his eyes slipped shut for another few seconds.

“Come on, Ressler,” Liz was saying all of a sudden, right next to him with her hand on his shoulder, “let's get you to your room before you fall asleep in your plate.” She was smiling broadly. It was one of the more beautiful things he had seen in a long while.

Ressler stared at her for a few seconds before he processed what she had just said. “Yeah. Guess that's not too unlikely,” he muttered, blinking slowly.

With Liz's help, he walked from the dining room down a hall, where Liz directed him to turn into the second room on the left. “Mine's just across the hall, and Red's is next to mine,” she told him. “Goodnight, Ressler.”

“Goodnight.” He returned her smile, then shut the door behind her. He had barely finished taking off his shoes and belt before he passed out on top of the very comfortable bed.

He slept soundly until about three in the morning, based on what the digital clock on the bedside table said. That was when he woke out of a terrible dream that he was not at all sad to immediately start to forget. All he could remember after his eyes shot open was something about a gunshot, intense fear, and then the pressure of water surrounding him. Everything else had already faded.

Now that he was awake, though, and speaking of water, Ressler decided he might as well take a shower. He still had river water on his skin and in his hair. Of course, if he didn't have a change of clothes...

He got up, groaning at a wide variety of sore muscles and aches, and turned on the bedside lamp. The room, which he hadn't really seen when he got here, was nice and fairly spacious. There was a wardrobe against the far wall. There was also a door that Ressler assumed led to the adjoining bathroom that he dimly recalled Liz mentioning last night.

Upon exploring, Ressler discovered that the bathroom was stocked with a decent selection of toiletries including a disposable razor, some towels, and shampoo. The wardrobe had a bathrobe in it, as well as clothes that looked like they might fit him. Ressler didn't really want to think about where these might have come from.

By now, although he was fairly sure he could go back to sleep again if he lay down, Ressler was set on the idea of a shower. He hoped it wouldn't be loud enough to wake Liz or anyone else.

The shower felt like heaven. The water was hot, and strong enough to ease his aching muscles. Shaving afterward was a little challenging, what with the number of spectacular bruises on his face, but he managed that as well. Then, lacking any other options, he put on the robe to use as pajamas and climbed under the covers. It only took him a few minutes to relax into slumber.

~


	6. Chapter 6

~~  
Liz woke early the next morning, as usual. It took her a moment to recall why she was feeling such a mixture of emotions, and then it came back to her: Ressler was here. He was asleep (she hoped) in the room across the hall from her. And although she agreed completely with Red's suggestion that Red's doctor friend should take a look at him today to make sure he wouldn't suffer any lasting effects from his terrifyingly near-death experience of the previous day, she was also so incredibly relieved that he was alive. Without any effort at all, she could bring to mind how he had looked when she had found him in the river: unresponsive, moving only with the current, cold to the touch, pale as death and with blue lips to match. She had been so scared that he was dead that it had probably taken her longer than necessary to remove the chain holding him to the pillar. And then he hadn't floated upward hardly at all – a stark indication of how little air was left in his body. In fact, he had begun to sink.

Shuddering, Liz rolled out of bed and decided firmly to think about something else. Like maybe what her former partner was going to decide to do next, now that he'd been forced out of the Bureau. That thought still had the power to make her furious. It was massively unfair that this one of Connolly's threats had come true, long after he was gone. If only she had gotten rid of all of the man's strategies and plots when she had ended his life.

There was a knock on her door before her thoughts could continue down this path for too long. “Lizzie, breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.”

“Thanks,” she called through the door. As she hurried to take a quick shower, she hoped that Ressler had slept enough that he wouldn't be quite so close to falling asleep in his food this morning. The thought made her smile. She had never seen him as unable to stay awake as he had been last night, except maybe the first time she had visited him in the hospital after Anslo Garrick. But he had been on some hefty painkillers then, so it wasn't really the same thing.

Her smile faded as she recalled the expression on his face when she had encouraged him to leave the table last night. For the previous hours of the day after he had been revived, there had been something in his eyes almost every time he looked at her that made it seem like it was causing him pain to do so. And in fact, it had seemed like he was making an effort _not_ to look at her at all. But that hadn't been the case when he met her gaze after dinner. He had looked at her like she was... She wasn't even sure what to compare it to. She wasn't sure it was a great idea to contemplate it too much, in fact. There was too much going on, too much at stake.

When Liz made her way out to the dining room, she saw that Ressler was already there, seated across from Red and staring into a mug of coffee. The bruises on his face were much more visible today. Other than that, though, he looked a little better. He glanced up as she arrived. “Morning,” he said, and then did that looking away thing again.

Liz frowned but said, “Morning. How did you sleep?”

“I woke up in the middle of the night, but I was able to go back to sleep afterward,” he told her.

“Good.” Liz sat down next to him and helped herself to some of the pastries from the platter in the middle of the table.

“Good morning, Lizzie. I was just telling Donald that the doctor should be by in about an hour and a half,” Red said. He smiled at her, but she could sense the tension in him. “We're scheduled to depart at eight tonight.”

“All right.” Liz took a bite of the puff pastry she'd selected, and closed her eyes for a second. It was delicious. Then she swallowed and was about to ask Red where they were headed next, when she stopped herself. Ressler was here, and he hadn't made up his mind about whether he was coming with them or not. So he couldn't be trusted with that information yet. “Long flight or short?” she asked instead, casually.

“Long,” said Red, glancing at Ressler. “With one stopover on the way.”

“If you guys want to talk freely, I can leave,” Ressler said, his voice sharp. He stood up and pushed his chair away from the table. “You know where to find me. It's not like I can go far.”

“Ressler--” But he was already gone, stalking down the hallway to his room. He didn't slam the door, but he might as well have done so. Liz sighed and turned back to her food, suddenly much less hungry.

“We're flying to Beijing,” Red said after a moment, very calmly, “with a stopover in Turkey.”

“Red.” Liz stared at him incredulously.

“Yes, Lizzie? I thought you wanted to know our planned itinerary.”

She dusted her hands off on a napkin and shook her head. The man could still be damned infuriating when he chose. “Of course I do! You know I do, but--” She gestured down the hallway. “Do you not think this is a problem?”

Red took a sip of his own coffee. “Lizzie, Donald has just had his entire world crumble into dust around him. You've had almost nine months to become accustomed to this life, and your ex-partner has had fewer than three full days. Give him time.”

Liz watched a bead of condensation roll down the outside of the pitcher of orange juice on the table. Her indrawn breath was ragged. Sure, she understood that Ressler would need time to begin to deal with the loss of his job, and the possibility of going on the run from the Cabal. The thing was, she suddenly realized, she was scared. She was scared that Ressler wasn't going to choose to join them. He had already made it clear that he wasn't going to tolerate the kind of manipulation she and Red had put him through in Paris. That was just the time he knew about. But now that she had a taste of having her best friend back with her, the man she'd worked with and grown to trust and rely on as her own life fell to pieces around her, she wasn't sure what she would do if he decided something else. At the same time, she knew it would be unforgivable of her to try to pressure him into deciding either way.

Red was watching her. She could see him out of the corner of her eye. “Why don't you give Donald a few more minutes, and then go talk to him?” he suggested.

“He doesn't want to talk to me,” said Liz with another shake of her head. She knew Red would hear the quaver in her voice, but she didn't care. “He-- he doesn't even want to _look_ at me.”

“Lizzie.” He reached over to cover her hand with his. When she looked up at him, he seemed to be searching for words. “Don't be so sure of that,” he said eventually. “You know nearly as well as I do that the things, the people we love can be those that cause us the most pain.”

She didn't pull her hand away, but she dropped her gaze from his. It seemed far more likely to her that Ressler couldn't stand to look at her because seeing her was a constant reminder of what he had just lost, and how much of it was her fault. Plus, this was the first time they had been able to interact in person since she had killed the US Attorney General in cold blood. No wonder he couldn't look at her. She was a murderer. He had told her he at least partially understood what she had done, but it was hard to believe he meant it.

“Go talk to him in a few minutes,” Red repeated softly after a moment. “He needs it.”

Liz ate a few more bites of her breakfast, and then went to brush her teeth and do her hair. By then, she figured Ressler would have cooled down enough that they could talk. Whether or not it would be a very long conversation would depend on how he responded to her. Of course, she reminded herself, there was also the fact that the doctor was going to be here in just under an hour. She would keep that in mind.

She knocked on his door. “Ressler? Can I come in?”

There was a pause. “It's unlocked.”

Liz almost smiled at the typically brusque response. When she opened the door, Ressler was sitting on the bed facing away from the door, looking out the window. “Mind if I sit?” she asked him, shutting the door behind her.

“Chair's all yours,” he replied, gesturing toward the one next to his wardrobe. He glanced at her, and then back at the trees outside his window.

Liz pulled the chair a little closer and then sat down. “Sorry for cutting you out of my conversation with Red earlier.”

Ressler shook his head. “It's not a big deal. I shouldn't have overreacted like that.”

“But it has to do with something that is a big deal,” she said. She looked down at her hands. If she weren't a coward, she thought to herself, this would be a good time to tell him he didn't have to feel trapped, forced into going on the run with them. He and Aram could probably figure out some kind of arrangement that would mean he could still live in DC and try to bring down the Cabal from outside the Bureau. Sure, the Cabal would still be watching, but at least they wouldn't be actively hunting him, if he were careful. The fact that he came back would probably make him look less suspicious, even.

“I've been doing some thinking,” Ressler said, breaking the short silence that had fallen. “I don't think I can go back to DC.”

Liz stared at him in surprise. It was like he'd been following along with her thoughts. “Really?”

He grimaced and nodded. “I can't imagine what I would do there, since I don't have a job and I don't have the task force anymore. But on the other hand, I'm worried about what will happen to Cooper and Aram, if I just disappear.”

Liz noticed she was rubbing her scar. It was probably the best time for her to tell Ressler what she had learned not too long after she escaped the country with Red.

“What?” Ressler asked, peering at her. “What is it?”

“Uh, you know how we never really learned much about how Samar got assigned to the task force?” Liz began.

“Yeah,” Ressler said. Then his eyes widened and he swore. “No, don't tell me: it was Reddington's doing. Somehow it was at his request.”

Liz gave a wry smile. “He didn't tell me until the time I asked him whether his mysterious source at the task force, who was always able to provide such detailed descriptions of how you guys were doing, knew if it was really Mossad who had called Samar,” she informed him.

She distinctly remembered how Red had raised his eyebrows and said casually, “You're assuming my source and Samar are two distinct people? Lizzie, I've had an agreement with the lovely Agent Navabi ever since she first tracked me down while you and Agent Ressler were working to take down Monarch Douglas Bank. She was your and Donald's partner, yes, but she's also done plenty of work for me.”

Liz realized that Ressler was still watching her expectantly, so she summarized what Red had told her back then. She went on, “Anyway, the upshot of all of that is, Samar is free to return to the task force, with Aram, as soon as the Cabal figures out how to sweep this whole thing under the rug as best they can.” She waved her hand around them to encompass their presence in Cairo. “And she'll make sure both Aram and Cooper are safe while she's there.” Liz was very grateful for this, as much as she'd been upset by learning about Samar's hidden agenda so long after the fact.

Ressler nodded. “And that also means she's free to leave when she wants, as well, and can do her best to set things up so that they're safe when she leaves?”

“Exactly.”

“Good. But what about the threats Connolly made against her and against Aram?” He scratched his eyebrow, wincing as he came in contact with a bruise. “Cooper told me what he said.”

Liz did her best not to imagine how that moment must have gone, and focus on Ressler's very reasonable question. “From what we know, the Cabal isn't particularly worried about the remainder of the task force by this point.” She gave him a sad smile. “Now that they've taken Cooper, me, and you out, they figure they can control it pretty easily.”

“Huh. Then they're underestimating Samar and Aram.”

“I agree,” she said. He seemed to be taking this latest revelation reasonably well so far, Liz thought. It was just that he was bound to go on and make the connection...

“Wait a minute.” Ressler's voice hardened, and he scowled as he stood up. “Does that mean-- Liz, did you, Reddington, and Samar set up the raid at the apartment yesterday? Because if this was more of your _pity_...”

“No!” Liz cut him off quickly. Then she sighed. “Okay, you're not totally wrong. We did try to make sure you would end up in Cairo, but it wasn't-- it wasn't because we felt sorry for you, or even the same reason we led you to Paris.”

When she paused, Ressler put his hands on his hips. He did not look or sound mollified in the least. “Then what was it?” He coughed a couple of times.

She made herself meet his angry gaze. “Red has another source that told him the Cabal was about to move against you,” she said. “So we had to act fast to make sure you had the chance to get out of there, in a way that still left you the option of returning to the FBI afterward. But we didn't know until it happened that they would choose to kick you out the way they did.”

Her former partner was silent for a while. He sat back down and dropped his head into his hands.

“I'm sorry, Ressler,” Liz whispered, having seen the anguish in his expression before he hid it. “This shouldn't have happened to you. None of it should.”

He didn't reply at first. Then he raised his head and looked at her. “Just to be clear, I don't blame you for the fact that I got kicked out of the FBI. It was my decision to keep taking those pills, and you could have turned me in, Liz, but you didn't. You let me deal with the problem myself. That means I have you to thank for not getting fired a lot sooner.”

She supposed he was technically correct, but it sure didn't feel like he had anything to thank her for. In fact, almost all of the terrible things that had happened to him that she knew of could be traced back to his work on the Blacklist. So in some ways...

“Anyway,” he said after a pause, “what you just told me about Samar makes it even more of a sure thing that I'm not going back to DC.” He let out a slow breath. “I don't see any way around that.”

He looked and sounded so desolate that Liz couldn't keep herself from moving to sit next to him on the bed. “You don't have to leave forever. It's just until we bring down the Cabal,” she reminded him. “That's what I keep telling myself, anyway. It helps a little bit.”

Ressler scoffed. “I guess. But it's not like I'm going to be much help toward that goal, no matter where I am. Everything I accomplished while I was in charge of the task force was thanks to you and Reddington. Hell, I didn't even manage to get you cleared of any of the false charges.”

Liz's jaw dropped. This was what he thought? This was what her manipulation over the past months had done to him? She took his hand. “Ressler,” she said, wishing he would look at her already, “the intel you and your team gathered from the Blacklisters we helped you find – all that data, along with the recordings Cooper and I found that implicate Connolly – it's thanks to your work that all of that is safe, verified, and ready to be used.” She squeezed his fingers, and he looked down at their hands. He didn't seem convinced. She continued, “You didn't have much to go on, but you took it and made the beginning of a solid case against the Cabal … and for me.” At that, she bit her lip, feeling her control start to crumble. “And you did that even after I put you in an impossible situation,” she managed to choke out.

“Liz,” he said, turning to face her and tightening his grip on her hand.

“Sorry. I'm sorry,” she said, before he could speak further. She quickly wiped her eyes with her other hand and took a steadying breath. “I want to hear what you've been thinking about what you're going to do next. I didn't mean to hijack the conversation with my issues.”

He frowned. “It's not like you don't--”

Just then, there was a knock on the door, and a second later, it opened to reveal Red and an unfamiliar dark-haired man. “Sorry to interrupt your conversation,” said Red, “but the doctor is here to check on Donald. Dr. Tahan, this is Elizabeth and her friend Donald whom we fished out of the Nile yesterday evening. Lizzie, Donald, this is Dr. Tahan.”

The man, who looked to be about ten years younger than Red, nodded to them both. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, both of you,” he said, in lightly accented English. His keen dark brown eyes moved from Liz to Ressler. “Sir, if you would be so good as to accompany me out to the sitting room, it will be more convenient for my examination.”

Liz followed Dr. Tahan, Red, and Ressler down the hall. Then she stopped just as they entered the room. Ressler didn't need an audience for this. She knew he certainly wouldn't want one. “We can finish our talk later, all right, Ressler?” she said in a low voice, touching him briefly on the arm.

Ressler turned to meet her gaze and nodded. “Yeah. After I'm done here.”

“Yes, we'll leave you to it,” Red agreed. He clapped Dr. Tahan on the shoulder. The doctor and his patient continued into the room, and Red looked at Liz. “In the meantime, Lizzie, I'd like to speak with you for a moment if you wouldn't mind.”

“Fine,” she said. She glanced at Ressler one more time and then walked past him with Red. Red led her to the dining area, where they both sat down. “What is it?”

“Do you know if Donald has made a decision about his future yet?” he asked. There was nothing in his expression beyond mild curiosity to suggest why he was asking, but Liz had a hunch he wasn't just curious.

“Well, he doesn't think he's going to go back to DC,” she said. “That's as far as we'd gotten. Why do you ask?”

“Because we need to leave within the hour. And assuming his health permits him to travel, we may need to bring him with us on the next leg of the journey no matter what he chooses in the end. Either that or he has to go into hiding from here.”

Liz felt her stomach drop. “What? What do you mean?”

“Deputy Director Marshall Gilbertson has apparently decided to pin the whole mess of the failed operation on our Donald's head,” Red explained, his tone darkening. “And he has the audacity to try to make him a scapegoat for his traitors inside the task force, too – by saying the former Agent Ressler had an agenda of his own that he was pursuing with help from the agents who, in reality, turned on him during your arrest. To that end, Ressler is wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Agent Tyler.”

“Damn it,” hissed Liz, standing up and starting to pace. Tyler, she knew, had recently become another man on the inside working for Red. Before that he had been an exemplary agent, aside from the mounting hospital bills for his sick aunt that he was unable to settle. Liz had never met him in person, but she had heard what had happened to him before Ressler knocked Franks into the water. And now, to hear that the Cabal was doing their best to blame Ressler for their own agents' failures... She stopped. “But hold on a minute. Weren't there witnesses that saw Ressler fall into the river, and then eventually not come back out again? Didn't we think they would assume he's dead?”

Red inclined his head. “They are aware that he may not be alive, but the Deputy Director is still organizing a manhunt for him on the off-chance that he is.”

Liz resumed pacing. That meant they would definitely have to leave ASAP. So much for giving Ressler the time he needed to make up his mind. At least he could still choose to go his own way after they landed in Beijing. Or Turkey, she supposed, depending on how long their stopover there would be.

“Why don't you sit down for the moment, Lizzie?” Red said after a moment. “Just watching you is exhausting. I promise, you wearing a path through the tiles of this floor won't help keep Ressler safe.” But his tone was gentle and almost concerned, teasing rather than mocking.

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you have anything more useful to suggest for me to do, then? Because otherwise I might have to put that theory to the test.”

“I'm sure the doctor will be finished with his examination very soon,” said Red. When she continued to look at him, he sighed, pulled a sheaf of papers out of his jacket, and said, “But if you insist, I have several more Cabal suspects to sift through, and I would value your profiling input, as usual.”

Liz took her seat again and slid some of the papers across the table so she could look at them. “Sure.”

This was something tangible she had been happy to contribute ever since Red had first asked her, a few weeks after they had fled DC. He had been unwilling to involve her in his criminal enterprises in any real way. Although she didn't really see why he insisted on maintaining a division there, when she was now a criminal as well, she did readily admit that she was more interested in focusing all of her energy on taking down the Cabal. Of course Red was invested in completing this task, as well, but he did sometimes have to tend to other business.

It was about ten minutes later that Dr. Tahan and Ressler came into the room. “How's our patient doing?” Red asked, standing up and giving Ressler a critical once-over. “He doesn't look to have been too upset by what you told him, at any rate, Dr. Tahan.”

“That is probably because I had nothing upsetting to tell him,” the doctor replied with a small smile. Ressler seemed to agree, as the doctor went on, “My examination found no indication of any advanced lung infection, though I prescribed some antibiotics in case the cough that Mr. Ressler told me about develops into a problem.” He stated further that he'd told Ressler what signs to look out for that would mean there was a serious infection that needed more medical attention.

Red and Ressler each thanked the doctor again, and then Red bent down close to the man to say something in quiet Arabic, which made Dr. Tahan smile and nod. Then they all shook hands, and the doctor left.

“So you're okay?” Liz asked Ressler, as soon as she heard the door close. Red had gone to escort the man to his car, since he said he had something else to talk about with him.

“Yeah,” Ressler said. “Nothing to worry about unless my cough gets worse or I start having trouble breathing. Got a couple of pills to take every day until they run out.” He showed her the two plastic bottles the doctor had left with him. Then he narrowed his eyes and focused on her. “Hey, what's wrong, Liz? What were you and Reddington talking about while I was busy?”

The time apart had not lessened Ressler's ability to notice her distress, she thought wryly. “It's not good news,” she told him, dropping her gaze to the floor. “We're going to have to leave Egypt sooner than we thought – and Red thinks you should go with us at least part of the way, so that you're safe. The FBI is looking for you now, too.”

Ressler looked surprised – but only for a few seconds. Then he just laughed without humor and shook his head. “That fast, huh?”

“I'm afraid so,” said Red, entering the room then. “And we have Deputy Director Gilbertson to thank, so I've heard.” He told Ressler what he'd told Liz about the manhunt and the so-called reasoning behind it.

By the time Red was done, Ressler's hands were in fists and he was scowling. “That smug, lying son of a bitch,” he growled. “He wants to blame Tyler's death on me, when it was his own man who shot him in the forehead?”

“To be fair, Agent Franks may have had orders from someone higher up the food chain than the Deputy Director, even,” said Red. “But yes, this is how the Cabal operates. They will do their best to make their failure disappear and blame it on anyone who dares to work against them.”

“So you think I should go with you guys, for the moment at least?” Liz was relieved, a little, that the idea didn't seem to sound repugnant to him.

“While a larger number of people does unavoidably complicate escape and travel plans to a certain extent,” Red replied, “yes. I do believe you would be safest if you took advantage of my resources right now, Donald.”

Ressler licked his lips. “If you're trying to tell me that I'll compromise your safety by going with you, then I--”

“No,” Red cut in, before Liz could protest. “I was merely pointing out that it's more challenging with more people. That was not to imply it was anywhere near impossible. Or that you're not welcome.”

He said this without any change in his inflection, but Liz saw Ressler's eyes widen. It was like he hadn't even thought of the possibility that he was a welcome addition here. She cleared her throat around a sudden tightness. “You won't drag us down, Ressler,” she said.

“Not if you do as instructed, that is,” added Red, with that purposefully irritating smile of his. “So. Now that everything is all cleared up, are we ready to go?”

~~  
Ressler tried, again, to wrap his mind around everything that had changed in the past forty-eight hours of his life. He wasn't sure he'd made much progress. Two days ago, he had been director of the task force assigned to track down federal fugitive Elizabeth Keen and, ideally, Raymond Reddington. He hadn't seen his former partner in almost nine months, and hadn't even spoken to her on the phone for far too long, either.

Now, he was a fugitive himself, wanted for questioning in the murder of a fellow FBI agent (except that 'fellow' wasn't even accurate anymore, either, since Ressler had been fired for his drug addiction) who had actually been killed by an agent of the Cabal working inside the task force. He had almost drowned in the Nile River. He was on the run with the aforementioned two targets of his task force, who had saved his life. They were on the way to a private airfield. From there, they would be flying to Turkey. Next on his to-do list? Deciding whether or not he would continue to travel with them, or start a new life by himself. But if he was honest with himself, he had already reached a decision by this point. He might have already known what he was going to decide back when he had first heard his options on the deck of that boat. He just hadn't said the words aloud yet.

Ressler glanced over at Liz in the next seat. She looked somehow both tense and bored. But that made sense – she would have done this countless times in the past months, packed up her very limited belongings and moved on at the first sign of an approaching threat. The thought that she must be pretty used to this process by now made him clench his fists and look away.

The trill of a cellphone brought Ressler's attention to the driver's seat, where Dembe was reaching to answer it. Liz and Reddington were both on alert now. Dembe listened, then spoke a few words to whoever was on the other end of the call. When he had hung up, he said grimly, “We cannot go to the airfield. There are men waiting for us there. They said they were FBI, but Hendricks thinks they aren't interested in _capturing_ anyone.”

Reddington's jaw tightened. “I see. Then we'll need to get to the secondary site, and take back roads. I'll call Serena to tell her we're going to be late.”

Dembe nodded and passed Reddington the phone. Then he made a U-turn as soon as it was even remotely safe to do so.

“The Bureau found us already?” Ressler asked, wishing he hadn't lost his gun in the fight with Franks.

“The Cabal posing as FBI,” corrected Reddington. “And no, they haven't found us. They just found a place they knew we might try to be. Try to keep up, Donald.”

Before Ressler could shoot back an annoyed comment, Reddington had started his call to Serena, whoever she was. He sighed and kept his mouth shut.

“Don't mind him. He gets a little snippy when things don't go according to his plan,” Liz said in a near-whisper.

Ressler snorted. “Yeah. And no doubt that only gets worse when it's me who messes them up.”

“You didn't mess them up. The Cabal did,” Liz pointed out.

“I guess.”

Liz stared at him like she wanted to say something, but then just shook her head.

They managed to arrive at the secondary site about half an hour later with no further disturbances. It turned out to be what looked like a military base, though there was almost no one there. Dembe drove them out to the helicopter landing pad, and the four of them climbed into a chopper that had a pilot waiting. Conversation on the chopper was necessarily limited. All Ressler bothered to ask was how long this trip would take, to which Red replied it wouldn't be more than an hour.

By the time they landed at another small airfield, Ressler was beginning to understand Liz's attitude of bored tension. Obviously, being on the run did not entail a constant state of excitement, although that didn't mean it wasn't nerve-wracking.

There was another jet waiting on the tarmac here, and no one prevented them from boarding. Ressler wondered if this was the same jet he and Reddington had flown on back from Munich, right before the Anslo Garrick debacle. If it wasn't, he thought, looking around inside, it certainly was similar. Maybe Reddington just really liked this model.

“All right,” said Reddington, as they all entered the plane, “it should be about four hours before we land in Ankara. Ideally, we'll only be stopping there for another couple of hours, so Lizzie and I can meet with a few associates who share our common enemy. Donald, that gives you another four hours to ponder your future, and perhaps discuss it with Elizabeth. I need to talk to the pilot, so I'll leave you to it.”

Ressler watched the other man head to the front of the plane. Dembe took a seat near the door to the cockpit, nodded to Ressler, and then pulled out an e-reader. For his part, Ressler gazed around at the other options, and chose a seat near the back. Liz sat next to him. “Is this okay?”

“Go ahead,” said Don. He tried to smile. “We haven't finished our conversation, after all.”

“Yeah.” She returned the smile, a little hesitant. “So, um, where were we?”

Don took a slow breath, and let it out. “Look, Liz, I don't need four more hours to make up my mind. I-- I think I already knew what I was going to decide when I woke up this morning, if not earlier.”

Liz raised her eyebrows. “Okay.” When he didn't continue right away, she prompted him. “So is there a reason you're still keeping me in suspense, then?”

He couldn't hold her gaze. It was still overwhelming to consider all of the implications. To consider that there was no need for them to be separated – not for the foreseeable future. If she didn't want to. “I'm not going to leave when we get to Ankara,” he said, staring at the seat in front of him. “If you and Reddington were serious when you said I wouldn't weigh you down, there's no good reason for me to try to do this on my own. I'm going to need help. And hell, I'd probably end up getting myself caught if I were by myself. I don't have the resources to avoid the Cabal's reach.”

Liz was quiet at first. Then she cleared her throat. “I think you're making the right decision. You've obviously considered all of the reasons to come with us, and I'm glad you made up your mind.”

There was something odd in her tone. “But?” Don said, turning toward her again.

She had turned away as well, but now she faced him and took a deep breath. “I don't want you to come if you-- if you think it's going to be too painful to be forced to share space with me so much of the time,” she said. Her voice trembled, but she persevered. “I know it must be hard to … be reminded of everything you've been forced to leave behind, every time you look at me. I'm sorry. And you're not even guilty of any real crime, so to have to be associated with-- a murderer, and the man you hunted for five years--”

Ressler had been listening to her halting, painful speech with increasing dismay. Finally he interrupted. “Liz! Stop!” Her gaze, which had been fixed on her knees, snapped up to him. He hurried to put his thoughts into words. “It's going to be hard for me to adjust to this new phase of life. Of course you're right about that much.”

It looked like there were tears pooling in her eyes. Ressler reached out and took her hand. “But the only thing that has been hard about sharing space with you, for the past day or so, is the fear that I'm going to have to stop. That there will be some reason I should leave, or that being here will make things harder or more dangerous for you.” His own voice threatened to crack, but he didn't look away. “I don't want to go back to-- not seeing you. Only hearing from you occasionally, over the phone or via email. And I _really_ don't want to go back to hunting you. We're supposed to be partners. We work better as a team.”

Liz seized his hand in a grip strong enough that it almost caused pain. “I don't want to go back to not seeing you, either,” she whispered. A tear made its way down her face, and she sniffed. Then she gave a watery little laugh.

“What?”

“Here I was, thinking you couldn't even stand the sight of me,” she said, “while you were worried about having to leave.”

Ressler suddenly thought about all the times he hadn't been able to meet her eye, and cringed. “No! That's-- God, I'm sorry, Liz. That was my problem, not yours.” He rubbed his hands over his eyes. He'd made her worry that he hated her. “I'm an asshole.”

“No, you're not,” she countered. Then she smiled. “Well, not most of the time, anyway. And not usually on purpose.”

“Oh, thanks, Keen,” said Ressler, although he couldn't keep the smile off his own face. “Thanks a lot.”

They grinned at each other, and Ressler felt something inside of him relax, as it hadn't in almost nine months. It felt like things might actually be okay. Not right now, but sometime in the future. And maybe sometime a little further in the future, once the Cabal was taken down... He hoped his grin hadn't just become too sappy. It was sort of nice, to realize fully why it had been so excruciating to be separated from her for so long, and why it had been even more torturous to imagine having to be apart again, for an unknown length of time. And he didn't think he was fooling himself that Liz might be leaning that same direction.

A minute later, Liz's smile faded, and she leaned closer. “But … you really would be all right with-- with being associated with Red and me?” she asked. “I mean, you still have your reputation...”

“The Cabal will make sure all anyone knows about me is that I'm an addict,” Ressler pointed out. “So no, I don't still have my reputation. And I'd be all right with it anyway. You and I know the truth. So do Samar, Aram, and Cooper, and Reddington.” He paused for a moment to reflect on the fact that he actually cared – a little – about Raymond Reddington's opinion of him. Enough that he wanted it to be based on facts, anyway. “Speaking of Reddington, though,” he added, “I draw the line at doing his dirty work.”

“As much as I appreciate the thought, Donald,” came Reddington's dry voice from the front of the plane, “I wasn't going to ask.”

Ressler rolled his eyes (the man had ears like a damn bat) and looked up to see Red walking toward them. Their host sat down sideways in the seat in front of Liz and glanced between the two of them before focusing on Ressler. “I take it you're not deserting us in Ankara, then?” he said, with an air of interest.

“No.” He was pleased at how resolved he both sounded and felt. “Since I can't work against the Cabal from inside the system anymore, this is the best place for me to be.”

“I agree,” said Reddington. “Savor this moment, Donald, because you know I don't say that regarding your ideas very often.”

Ressler just scoffed, looked at Liz, and then back at the man who had saved his life twice. There would probably be a lot of times that he wished he were anywhere but in close proximity to Reddington – and even times that he wished he could be by himself. But all in all, he didn't think he had made a mistake accepting the company of his partner and … he wasn't sure what category to put Red in. Friend? Guide? Patron? None of them seemed to fit. He shook his head. That wasn't the important issue right now. “So,” he said, “what's our next move?”

~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished the last chapter! So sorry to have taken so long. Hopefully it was worth the wait.
> 
> Thank you again to all who stuck with the story, and left kudos and comments! And thanks again to my beta, Mack.


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